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THE LIFE 

OF 

FBANCIS, LOKD BACON. 






CHAPTER I. 

BACONS BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EABLY YOUTH. 



Francis Bacon, afterwards Baron Verulam and 
Viscount St. Albans, Lord High Chancellor of 
England, was born at York House, in the Strand, 
London, on the 22nd January, 1561. 1 

One of the profoundest essayists upon human 
nature has thus classified the agencies that are at 
work in the formation of individual character: — 
" We may regard our past life as a continued though 

1 It may here be desirable to observe, once for all, that for the sake 
of uniformity with the calendar of the greater part of Europe, an act of 
parliament was passed, in 1751, for the adoption of the new style in all 
public and legal transactions ; and, as one of the results, the commence- 
ment of the legal year was changed from the 25th of April to the 1st of 
January. This will account for a frequent difference between the dates 
of this memoir and those of the earlier biographies of Lord Bacon. 
For example, Bawley states that Bacon was born on the 22nd of 
January, 1560 ; whereas, according to the new style, we should say 
1561. 



2 bacon's bibth, childhood, 

irregular course of education; and the discipline 
has consisted of instruction, companionship, reading, 
and the diversified influences of the world." 1 This 
is most true, looking, in general, at the entire of a 
man's life ; but its truth is still more evident when 
we confine our study to the development of a man's 
youth. His mind is then so plastic, that scarcely 
any force can be brought to bear upon it, without 
imprinting some line, or moulding it into some 
peculiarity of form. "When, therefore, we aim to 
estimate an individual's history, it becomes us to 
revert back to the period when he was most im- 
pressible, and to inquire into the mental and moral 
atmosphere which he breathed at the earliest ; into 
the habits which he was invited to contract, by 
precept and example ; and into the range of thought 
and its associations in which he was called first to 
expatiate. 

It is for this reason that we propose, before 
entering more immediately on the life of Lord Bacon, 
to take a survey of that home in which he first drew 
his breath, and the spirit and thoughts of which 
first met his sensibilities and his intellect. We shall 
then have to visit the university where his budding- 
manhood was cherished, and then the foreign court 
to which he afterwards repaired; and thus strive 
to ascertain some of the most important impressions 
which were likely to have been made upon him 

l Foster's Essays, "On a Man's Writing Memoirs of Himself." 
Letter 11. 



AXD EA£LY DATS. 6 

during his immaturity. How important this is for 
our biography will appear hereafter. 

First, of that home, and of the being who, at 
the hearthstone, is the presiding earthly spirit to the 
child — the mother. She was the second daughter of 
Sir Anthony Cooke, a man distinguished for his 
learning and his virtues. He had been tutor to 
king Edward yi, and on the death of his royal and 
exemplary pupil, became a fugitive from the per- 
secution of queen Mary, but returned to England 
on the accession of queen Elizabeth, and died at 
his own seat in 1576, old in years and honours. 
Lady Bacon was preeminent for her attainments. 
As was then the case with ladies of her station, she 
had been thoroughly educated in the Greek and Latin 
languages, as well as in the Italian ; and we may judge 
of her proficiency from the facts, that she corre- 
sponded in Greek with bichop Jewel, translated his 
" Apology" from the Latin, with a version so faithful 
and elegant that he would not alter one syllable, 1 and 
published in English five and twenty sermons, all 
from the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino, on Predestina- 
tion and Eree "Will. Moreover, so illustrious was 
she for her religious character, as well as for her 
learning, that the eminent and pious Theodore Beza 
dedicated to her his " Meditations." 

Then, next in influence over his childhood came 
his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon. Eor more than twenty 
years he held the great seal of England ; and such 

1 Strype, Parker, vol. i. p. 354, etc. 



4 BACON S BIETH, CHILDHOOD, 

were his vast legal abilities, such his political wisdom, 
that he was universally acknowledged as second only 
to the great Cecil in the state. There are monuments 
still existing at Cambridge to prove his earnest sym- 
pathy with letters ; and his unvarying fidelity to the 
Eeformation during the perilous times of Queen 
Mary, and amidst the miserable vacillation of so 
many of his contemporaries, showed the consistency 
of his faith. 

From these statements as to his mother and father, 
we may infer, with certainty, that Lord Bacon's 
earliest years must have been surrounded with the 
choicest influences of learning and religion. For 
both his parents singularly combined faculties of the 
highest order, with habits which were minutely 
practical. And it were gratuitous to suspect, that 
the one passed her mornings with Plato, to the 
neglect of her youngest son Francis; or that the 
other overlooked his moral education, for the sake of 
his favourite Quintilian, or those state-intrigues in 
regard to which his moderation warranted the motto 
which he placed on his escutcheon for himself, 1 and 
which became a proverb among others. One can 
scarcely conceive of more friendly agencies operating 
upon a youth, than those which obtained in this 
home. The minds of both parents were attuned to 
the noblest voices of literature ; the mother's accents 
must have made musical the crabbed philosophy 

1 "Mediocria firma." The idea which, as a motto, this conveys is — 
" Moderate fortunes are stable." 



AXD EARLY DATS. 5 

of the ancients; the father's vigorous action must 
have saved the youthful listener to that music from 
a mere dreamy pleasure; and, more than all, the 
freshness of religious convictions for which the wife, 
in her father's exile, and the husband, in his own 
person, had suffered, could not fail to bring religious 
truth before their offspring in the form and power of 
reality. 

Mr. ITacaulay has paid a tribute, as true as it is 
eloquent, to the memory of Sir Nicholas Bacon and 
his brother statesmen, in his description of their 
characters and of their homes : " Sir Nicholas Eacon 
inscribed over the entrance of his hall at Gorhani- 
bury, ' Mediocria fir ma.' This maxim was con- 
stantly borne in mind by himself and his colleagues. 
They were more solicitous to lay the foundations of 
their power deep, than to raise the structure to a 
conspicuous but insecure height. None of them 
aspired to be sole minister. None of them provoked 
envy by an ostentatious display of wealth and 
influence. None of them affected to outshine the 
ancient aristocracy of the kingdom. They were free 
from that childish love of titles which characterized 
the successful courtiers of the generation which pre- 
ceded them, and of that which followed them. Only 
one of those whom we have named was made a peer ; 
and he was content with the lowest degree of the 
peerage. As to money, none of them could, in that 
age, justly be considered as rapacious. Some of them 
would, even in our time, deserve the praise of 



6 BACON S BIETII, CEXLLHOOD, 

eminent disinterestedness. Their fidelity to the state 
was incorruptible. Their private morals were with- 
out stain. Their households were sober and well 
governed." 1 

Then, again, who were the guests of this home, 
from whom an observant child could not fail to catch 
high impulses ? There were all those ministers to 
her selection of whom, and loyal confidence in whom, 
the great Elizabeth owed her renown. There was 
the sage Burleigh, " our English Nestor," 2 a living 
type of solidity of judgment, of probity, and of 
noble industry. There were the astute and dexterous 
Walsingham ; the ardent Oxford ; the military, naval, 
scholar-like, courteous, eloquent, poetic, philosophic 
Ealeigh. There, too, must have been often seen the 
good and the reverend bishop Jewel, perchance fol- 
lowed by his acolyte, Eichard Hooker. At the festive 
board of the old knight, the chivalrous Sir Philip 
Sidney, without fear, and without reproach, must have 
often sat. Floating expressions about Spenser and 
his elf- like imaginations, with genial praise of their 
ethereal beauty, must have met the young scholar's 
ear. Sir Francis Drake, with his weather-beaten 
visage, but his heroic words, must have often evoked 
the idea of the patriot in the eager boy. Nor could 
there have been there wanting some subtle school- 
man, full of human kindness, albeit full, to overflow- 
ing, of his passion for intellectual casuistry. 

Let us but think of these as the more than 

i Macaulay's Essays, p. 346. 2 Fuller. 



AJTD EAEXT LAYS. i 

probable associations of that mind which we are 
about to try to estimate. And then, let us follow 
him from the table to which he had been introduced, 
back to his own chamber; whither he had to retire 
to rest, full of shapeless and wondering conceptions 
about human greatness ; about large-minded piety ; 
about the polity of the church ; about chivalry ; about 
imagination; about stern and suffering patriotism; and 
last, but not least to his quickened intellect, about 
philosophy. Cecil made this boy think of a states- 
man's greatness ; bishop Jewel, of the earnest claims 
of religious truth ; Sidney, of the touching bravery of 
true manhood ; Spenser, of the innumerable, though 
invisible denizens of the forest-glade; whilst a Ealeigh 
and a Drake warmed him into the magnanimity of an 
Englishman. Big with all these thoughts which he 
bore away from his father's table, he had, before he 
slept, to bend his knee at the side of his learned, yet 
pious and gentle mother, and to address, through 
Christ, the Supreme God. 

Then still again, in order to our appreciation of 
the influences of his home, let us recollect that, on 
sundry occasions, the father's homestead was signally 
honoured by the visits of the queen Elizabeth. Can 
we suppose that such a precocious youth as was Francis 
Bacon, listened unwittingly to the words of her whose 
indomitable courage had scorned that Armada which 
bore the freight of Boman Catholic cruelty, more than 
even that of Castilian insolence ; who had taken the 
people as her spouse, and given promise to observe 



8 bicon's bieth, childhood, and eaely days. 

all the rights of that marriage covenant; who 
had, in the midst of her dalliance with earthly 
affections, shown how vigilantly she could watch 
over, and how wisely she could promote, the well- 
being of the people whom she called her own? 
And what must have been his young emotions 
when, having told her majesty, as she asked his 
age, " that he was just two years younger than her 
happy reign," she welcomed his answer, and called 
him her young Lord Keeper ? 

"With these influences, calculated as they were 
to awaken seriousness of action, devout principle, 
self-control, gentle courage, a pure fancy, and true 
and brave love of country ; followed by a mother's 
womanly but learned benison, and a father's maxims 
and examples ; Francis Bacon was being prepared to 
enter the university of Cambridge, 






CHAPTEK IL 

BACON AT THE UNIVERSITY OE CAMBEIDGE. 

Except that Erancis Bacon was very delicate in 
health, and, thereby, was less tempted than most 
boys to sacrifice his books for robuster pleasures; 
that, as we have already hinted, his tact and readi- 
ness of answer obtained queen Elizabeth's flattering 
recognition of him as her young Lord Keeper ; that 
he showed his characteristic curiosity about physical 
facts, stealing away from his play-fellows to a vault 
in St. James's Eields, in order to examine into a 
curious echo; 1 and that, when scarcely twelve, he 
indulged in ingenious speculations to account for 
the apparent anomalies of legerdemain; we know 
nothing certain about his childhood. 

Neither have we more satisfactory information 
about his life, for three years, at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, where he was placed by his father, 
under archbishop Whitgift, before he was thirteen. 

But, knowing as we do that he was singularly 
precocious and observant, and that his mother's 

i Vide Eacon's Works. Natural History. Cent. n. \ 240. 



10 BACON AT 

intellectual tastes were of so very high an order, and 
that both the literary habits and the enlightened 
companions of his father, must have told most 
powerfully upon his young mind, we may feel sure 
that he entered the university with an amount of 
knowledge far from ordinary. If we may judge 
from those portions of his subsequent works which 
he wrote himself in Latin, and from his general 
admission of a want of facility for so doing, we 
may assume that he was indisposed to the acquisi- 
tion of the learned languages. But he must have 
been so far familiar with them as to warrant that 
critical spirit which we know him to have indulged, 
as to the ancient philosophy, even before he was 
sixteen. 

Perhaps the "genius loci" [influence of place] 
was never more awake and active at Cambridge than 
at the time when Erancis Bacon matriculated. A 
most mistaken notion has generally prevailed that, 
when he took his rooms, he became a member of 
a corporation that was dormant; over whom the 
slothful spirit of what are called "the Dark Ages" 
still spread its wings; and that then this young 
student awoke it to consciousness and scientific 
activity. The least observation of the times, pro- 
vided it be impartial, will show that notion to be 
false. Miot to speak of the quickening thoughts 
which the Beformation, still so recent, had in- 
breathed into the minds of that distinguished uni- 
versity, where the works of Martin Luther and 



CAMBRIDGE. 1 1 

Philip Melancthon, Bucer and Sir Thomas More; 
Calvin, Par el, and Beza ; Zuingle and BeUarmin, 
were keeping the whole consciousness of that great 
body in the most earnest antagonism : not to speak 
of this — Boethius and Ascham, George Buchanan 
and Sir Philip Sidney, were active in their influence. 
So too, and more especially for the subject of our 
memoir, a strife was existing between the disciples 
of the schoolmen and the pure Aristotelian remon- 
strants ; and Cesalpini, and Cremonini, and Pa- 
trizzi, and Jordano Bruno, and, above all, Sanchez 
with his theory, and Aconcio with his logic, and 
Bamus with his dialectics, were fermenting that 
mass. And, moreover, Tartaglia and Cardan and 
"Whetstone, by their new algebraic formulae; Yieta 
above them all ; Commandin, in his pure geometry ; 
and, still further, Copernicus with his bold naviga- 
tion of the heavens, and Tycho Brahe, his lieutenant 
in the voyage ; Gesner in natural, and Machiavelli 
in political philosophy; all these, and others like them, 
were stirring Cambridge to its very depths. So 
that, prostrate though the university discipline was 
beneath a number of pseudo-aristotelian forms — we 
must not, for the purpose of magnifying the genius 
and forecast of Francis Bacon, describe him as if, 
whilst in the midst of sleepers, he alone had main- 
tained his wakefulness, and had welcomed the day's 
dawn as his kindred light, and had eagerly, but in 
heroic solitude, looked out upon the amphitheatre of 
human knowledge, and striven to map into accuracy 



12 BACON AT 

its open plains, and its sombre forests, its glaciers 
which were chilly, and its peaks which were in- 
accessible. 

We have no records, except those of his friendly 
biographer Eawley, from which we can learn, 
whether true or no, that Francis Bacon's progress 
at the university was " rapid and uncommon;" for 
(so says that biographer) "he had run through the 
whole circle of the liberal arts, as they were then 
taught, before he was sixteen. But, what is far more 
surprising, he began even then to see through the 
emptiness and futility of the philosophy in vogue ; 
and to conjecture that useful knowledge must be 
raised on other foundations, and built up with other 
materials, than had been employed through a tract of 
many centuries backward. In this, his own genius, 
aided by a singular discernment, must have been his 
only preceptor. In matters of reasoning, the authority 
of Aristotle was still acknowledged infallible in the 
schools, as much as that of the pope in affairs of 
religion had lately been acknowledged there, and 
everywhere else." 1 

Our readers will not think it an unnatural digres- 
sion (we mean it only as an episode) when we submit 
a few remarks upon this college life of Francis Bacon, 
meagre as are our materials. There can be but little 
doubt that, when he left Cambridge, Bacon carried 
with him "a profound contempt for the course of 
study pursued there, a fixed conviction that the 

l Works, vol. i. p. iii. 



CAX3ETDGE. 13 

system of academic education in England was radi- 
cally vicious, a just scorn for the trifles on which the 
followers of Aristotle had wasted their powers, and 
no great reverence for Aristotle himself." 1 But let us 
say, that the future Lord Bacon rued this his youthful 
superciliousness, and that those grave defects in his 
philosophical life, to which we shall hereafter have to 
advert, sprang from it. At present it will suffice us 
to observe, that he had to regret his want of that 
facility in current communication with the learned 
men of other countries, which he would have had if 
he had been a properly docile student in the classics ; 
and that, if he had more heartily given himself up to 
the science of his age, bald though it was, he never 
could have fallen into that disgrace as a fortuitous 
natural philosopher, which, notwithstanding his far 
higher science, places him beneath Pliny the elder, 
and ranks him as among those ancient servitors who 
gathered up things for their master, and, meanwhile, 
talked with wonderment about them. 

This is a most important lesson, which, in all 
genial fellowship of feeling, we would ask the young 
collegian to learn. Even so great a man as Lord 
Bacon had to lament, from his own consciousness, his 
deficiencies in that which a college discipline alone 
can give ; and all scientific posterity looks with pain 
surprise upon the unsystematic, and really empi- 
rical character of his natural observations and ex- 
periments. 

i Maeaulay'a Essays, p. 34?. 



14 BACON AT CAMBRIDGE. 

And if this was the case with one for whom, 
because of his unparalleled genius, no precedent was 
necessary, and whom no one of us can, without the 
most egregious and ominous presumption, take as a 
precedent for one's self; surely it may be argued 
that, while a young mind, as it enters upon its 
university life, may retain within itself the unfettered 
consciousness of its thoughts and convictions about 
the formularies of study prescribed to it, the highest 
wisdom would teach it to receive the discipline in all 
true fealty. Supposing it to be imperfect, or even 
absurd, it must be better than no discipline at all ; 
and seeing that it is enjoined by our intellectual and 
Christian fathers, a young man's mind must be, at 
least, defective in veneration (which, be it recollected, 
is a thoughtful feeling) if, in defiance of experience, 
he prefers the whisper of a pride which in itself is 
pitiable, or of a religious fastidiousness which is 
as often the dictate of indolence, as it is that of 
deficient information. 



CHAPTEE III. 



BACOX IN FEA^CE, 



Draixo the reign of Henry vm, a.d. 1547, Sir 
Nicholas Eacon had been appointed by that sovereign 
one of the commissioners to fonnd a college for the 
training of yonng diplomatists, and to prepare a plan, 
and frame statutes, for the institution. Among other 
recommendations, these commissioners advised that 
the students should be sent, as soon as they were 
sufficiently advanced, to foreign courts, where, as 
attaches to English ambassadors, they might be early 
initiated in political affairs. Unhappily, this project 
failed, the monarch having dissipated those revenues 
of the suppressed convents which he had originally 
destined for it. But, we may well believe that the 
father was only carrying out his individual convic- 
tion which he had advised in general, when he sent 
his son to Prance immediately on his leaving college, 
in the suite of Sir Ami as Paulet, queen Elizabeth's 
ambassador. There he spent three fall years, with 
the exception of one short interval when, for his 
eminent talents and trustworthiness, he was employed 



16 L1C0X IN FEANCE. 

on a secret mission to his sovereign. On his return, 
Sir Amias thus writes to the Lord Keeper : "I rejoice 
much to see that your son, my companion, hath, by 
the grace of God, passed the brunt and peril of his 
journey; whereof I am the more glad, because 
in the beginning of these last troubles it pleased 
your lordship to refer his continuance with me to my 
consideration. I thank God these dangers are past, 
and your son is safe, sound, and in good health, and 
worthy of your fatherly favour." 1 Francis Bacon 
was then, reckoning according to the new style, in 
the early part of his eighteenth year. 

In allusion to this, his residence in France, Lord 
Chief Justice Campbell speaks of it as " a passage of 
his life which has hitherto received too little atten- 
tion, in tracing the formation of his mind and charac- 
ter." 2 His lordship merely makes the suggestion ; 
let us try to act upon it. 

When this young man visited France, not four 
years had elapsed since the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew's day : that bloody and treacherous deed which 
was equally consistent with the principles of papal 
policy, and with those of Catherine de' Medici, the 
queen-mother, and the dissimulating weakness of her 
son, Charles ix. Although Francis Bacon was too 
young to be at court when the news reached queen 
Elizabeth, it was impossible for him to have been 
unaware of the appalling grief and horror with which 
his royal mistress and all those around her, nay, the 

1 Sept. 1577. 2 Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. i. p. 277. 



BACOX EX EEAXCE. 17 

whole country ; heard of it. In the cause of that 
Protestantism which these inhuman butchers sought 
to destroy, his maternal grandfather had spent years 
of weary exile; his father, years of perilous dis- 
quietude. Doubtless, the hand of Eishop Jewel 
had been upon his head, and that revered confessor 
must have imbued him with many a thought and 
feeling favourable to the primitive faith. We can 
imagine him, with a mind still fresh from Fox's 
martyrology, pausing with protestant indignation 
over those spots which, as yet, were red with 
the blood of the venerable Colignv. of Teligni, 
Soubise, Eochefoucault, Pardaillon, Piles and Lavar- 
din, and five hundred other Paladins, whose heroic 
shields had, heretofore, been employed as faithfully 
for their country, as for their principles as Huguenots. 
We can, therefore, well understand the fervour with 
which, during his residence in France, and anticipat- 
ing the ascent of Henry of Xavarre to the throne, he 
writes : " The next to the succession makes already 
profession of the reformed religion, besides the in- 
crease thereof daily in France. England and Scotland 
are already, (rod be thanked, quite reformed, with the 
better part of Germany." l Hereafter, it will be seen 
how firmly, yet with a large and tolerant mind 
towards the Koinan Catholics, he maintained his 
own profession of Protestantism. 

In one of his essays, that on " Travel," he gives 
those counsels to young men who visit foreign 

1 Works, iii. p. 4. 



18 EACON IN FEAXCE. 

countries, which, we may be assured, he followed for 
himself. To adopt his own phrase, he went out 
"not hooded," but " looked abroad." " It is a strange 
thing," he remarks, " that in sea voyages, where there 
is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should 
make diaries; but in land- travel, wherein so much 
is to be observed, for the most part they omit it ; as 
if chance were fitter to be registered than observation. 
Let diaries therefore be brought in use." 1 He has 
left us no such diary ; but from the youthful memo- 
randa which he made during this his stay in France, 
and which, together with subsequent observations, he 
published as a tract on "The State of Europe," we 
have ample proofs that the courts of princes and of 
justice; the ecclesiastical tribunals; churches and 
monasteries, and monuments ; cities and towns, with 
their walls and fortifications, their havens and their 
harbours ; antiquities and ruins ; colleges, libraries, 
and lectures; shipping and navies; mansions; arse- 
nals; exchanges; military tactics; curiosities of vertu 
— all these, with his characteristic spirit of classifica- 
tion, he most carefully observed. 
• "What must have been the guardian influences at 
work on his youthful mind while at the French court, 
may be gathered from the judgment which he re- 
corded upon its sovereign. This he wrote in his 
nineteenth year: "The French king, Henry in, of 
thirty years of age, of a very weak constitution, and 
full of infirmities ; yet extremely given over to his 

1 Works, ii. p. 294. 



BACON CT FBAXCE. 19 

wanton pleasures, having only delight in dancing, 
feasting, and entertaining ladies, and chamber plea- 
sures; no great wit, yet a comely behaviour and 
goodly personage; very poor through exacting inordi- 
nately by all devices of his subjects, greatly repining 
• that revenge and hungry government; 1 abhorring 
wars and all action ; yet daily worketh the ruin of 
those he hateth, as all of the religion and the house 
of Bourbon ; 2 doting fondly on some he chooseth to 
favour extremely, without any virtue or cause of 
desert in them, to whom he giveth prodigally." 3 

Francis Bacon was constitutionally grave, though 
the very opposite of morose, in disposition. That he 
was not the latter, will appear hereafter in our 
reference to his " Collection of Apothegms," (which 
Mr. Macaulay, somewhat partially we think, describes 
as "the best collection of jests in the world,") together 
with the proofs we shall adduce of his high social 
qualities. We may, therefore, feel somewhat sure 
that, in the above estimate of the character and con- 
duct of Henry in, of France, there was nothing of 
the illiberally fastidious ; that he formed it in a state 
of mind which was, while prepared to enter buoyantly 
into enjoyment, morally superior to the syren influ- 
ences of dissipation. 



1 This is very obscure. It is probable that Bacon intended to convey 
that the subjects of Henry in. repined at his revengeful and hungry 
government. 

2 Henry of Navarre (afterwards Henry iv. of France) was, at this 
time, head of the house of Bourbon. 

3 Works, iii. p. 15. 



20 BACON IN FBANCE. 

But as to more grave subjects, and as to those 
which especially affected his education for a future 
statesman, he had to live in an atmosphere of strife 
which might pre-eminently be called " politico-reli- 
gious." The houses of Guise and Montmorency; the 
houses of Guise and Navarre, kept the whole realm 
of France in disquietude and intrigue, and often 
open violence. And the monarch's weakness of cha- 
racter, unredeemed by morality of conduct, could hold 
no check upon the attendant convulsions. Mean- 
while, as he says himself, speaking of his own 
sovereign, " because the queen's majesty hath that 
reputation to be the defender of the true religion and 
faith, against her majesty, as the head of the faithful, 
is the drift of all these mischiefs." 1 Notwithstanding 
all the persiflage of the courtier wherewith, in after 
years, he was wont to address her, we must conclude 
that, firm in his protestant predilections, and also in 
his patriotism, he could not but often, and passionately 
as a young man, revert to the dignified self-control, 
and the sagacious supremacy of rule, and the popular 
thoughtfulness, which distinguished the monarch- 
mother of his own country. 

He appears to have made a tour through several of 
the French provinces, and to have spent some time at 
Poictiers. But we have no memoranda of his journey- 
ings in the one, or of his residence in the other ; 
unless one may assume that his juvenile recollections 
concurred with other knowledge, ten years afterwards, 

1 Works, iii. p. 4. 



BACON IN FRANCE. 21 

when he wrote the following : " The kingdom of 
France, which, by reason of the seat of the empire 
of the west, was wont to have the precedence of 
the kingdoms of Europe, is now fallen into those 
calamities, that, as the prophet saith, 'From the 
crown of the head to the sole of the foot, there is no 
whole place.' The divisions are so many, and so 
intricate, of Protestants and Catholics, royalists and 
leaguers, Bourbonists and Lorrainists, patriots and 
Spanish, as it seemeth God hath some great work to 
bring to pass upon that nation." * 

In fine, in so far as this state of France induced 
suggestive influences upon his mind, we may con- 
clude, that Francis Bacon received those of tolera- 
tion, in reaction to his horror at Papal cruelties; 
those of high intellectual and moral disgust, at a 
turpitude which a licentious monarch and court made 
still more offensive by their own imbecility; those 
of sorrow and of wonder that such licentiousness and 
such feeble statesmanship had so palsied the powers 
and faculties of a great people ; together, on the other 
hand, with those of reverent homage towards that 
government of his own country which presented, in 
the strongest contrast, the nascent principles of 
religious liberty, the high decencies of life, and the 
active virtues of a sound and vigorous diplomacy. 

It may be instructive to us to glance at the philo- 
sophical information, which one who was to be so 
great, possessed while in Paris, and which we gather 

1 Works, iii. p. 55, 



22 BACON IX FEANCE. 

from scattered fragments in his works : " The sym- 
pathy of individuals that have been entire, or have 
touched, is of all others the most incredible ; yet, 
according unto our faithful manner of examination 
of nature, we will make some little mention of it. 
The taking away of warts, by rubbing them with 
somewhat that afterwards is put to waste and 
consume, is a common experiment ; and I do appre- 
hend it the rather because of my own experience. 
I had, from my childhood, a wart upon one of my 
fingers : afterwards, when I was about sixteen years 
old, being then at Paris, there grew upon both my 
hands a number of warts, at the least a hundred, in a 
month's space. The English ambassador's lady, who 
was a woman far from superstition, told me one day 
she would help me away with my warts : whereupon 
she got a piece of lard with the skin on, and rubbed 
the warts aU over with the fat side ; and amongst 
the rest, that wart which I had had from my child- 
hood : then she nailed the piece of lard, with the fat 
towards the sun, upon a post of her chamber window, 
which was to the south. The success was, that 
within five weeks' space all the warts went quite 
away ; and that wart which I had so long endured, 
for company. But at the rest I did little marvel, 
because they came in a short time, and might go 
away in a short time again ; but the going away of 
that which had stayed so long, doth yet stick with 
me." 1 

1 Works, ii. p. 75. 



BAC0X IX FRANCE. 23 

We have quoted this, quite aware that it must 
awake a smile in some ; perhaps it will be thought 
frivolous and unnecessary by others. But to a mind 
at all thoughtful it must be important, as showing 
weakness in the neighbourhood of great strength of 
mind; a disposition towards fancy in that same 
bosom where there were already working those feel- 
ings which were so revolutionary of all superstitious 
hypotheses. "We have quoted it likewise, as a first 
proof that even so severe a philosophical iconoclast, 
made many a genuflection before an idol of the 
imagination. One of his best French biographers 
remarks upon this fact: " Bacon gives this instance 
as an example of a species of sympathetic correlation, 
or of sympathetic reaction, between materials which 
were formerly parts of the same whole, or which 
have been in contact with one another. It is evident 
that he is deceived here, by the simple juxta-position 
of two facts, independent of each other, and that he 
fell into the sophism, " cum hoc, ergo propter hoc," 
[with this, therefore, because of this.] But ought 
we to be astonished that, at a period when the 
existence of occult powers in matter was generally 
admitted, such a kind of experimental evidence 
sometimes subjugated a reason which was, ordinarily, 
so strong ? "We should the rather wonder, if he had 
invariably resisted that which he looked upon as the 
result of true observation." 1 

Again : Francis Bacon was suddenly arrested in 

1 De Vauzelles. Vie de Francois Bacon, torn. L p. 11. 



24 SACON IN FllANCE. 

his foreign tour by the melancholy news of the death 
of his father. In reference to this, he has recorded : 
"I myself remember, that being in Paris, and my 
father dying in London, two or three days before my 
father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers 
English gentlemen, that my father's house was 
plaistered all over with black mortar." 1 

If these statements had been recorded when he 
was a youth, merely, we should be fair in placing 
them among that love of the marvellous for which 
youth at all times is distinguished. But these are 
gathered from his cabinet of philosophical pheno- 
mena. And they will, therefore, prepare us for still 
more emphatic instances of the strange and intimate 
and almost fascinating fellowship which subsists 
between incredulity and .credulity. Francis Bacon 
was, at this very moment, planning a crusade against 
the hypotheses and " anticipations of nature," 
and " superstitions" of past ages. In years subse- 
quent he realized that plan ; and yet, both at that 
moment and in those years subsequent, he held 
up, as facts related together, the one by the link 
of causation, the other by a most trivial and un- 
meaning coincidence, those very things which his 
" philosophy " ranked among the " idols of the 
theatre." 

So true is it, that the intellect, even the highest 
among men, has lost its harmony of proportion 
through sin ; for this inconsistency in Francis Bacon 

1 Works, ii. p. 71. 



LACON IN FRANCE. 25 

is more than near to a moral inconsistency. So wise, 
therefore, will it be for us, in our estimate of human 
judgments, never to ignore the truth, that the loftiest 
human mind is vulnerable to errors, for even such 
a mind has sinned ; and that none of us should con- 
fide in our own decisions of thought, without the 
qualifying admission that some moral disturbance 
may have intervened. 

Upon the case before us, it is impossible to dwell 
too emphatically. Let one of our readers be intel- 
lectually cautious, how much soever ; let him be in 
training, how severe soever, for the examination of 
the laws of moral evidence; let him thereby be 
tempted to despise the social and the religious vaga- 
ries of the inferior persons with whom he may be 
called incidentally to associate ; yet he may remem- 
ber, and with advantage, that the intellect which 
most probably was the largest the world has ever 
seen, was guilty of imbecile aberrations. And, verily 
this should make him modest about what he thinks 
of himself, and also about what he thinks in regard 
to others. 

Francis Bacon was suddenly stopped short in his 
foreign travels and personal ease, on the sudden 
death of his father, of whom he says himself: "He 
was a plain man, direct and constant, without all 
finesse and doubleness ; and one that was of the mind 
that a man in his private proceedings and estate, 
and in the proceedings of state, should rest upon the 



26 BACON IN FRANCE. 

soundness and strength of his own courses, and not 
upon practice to circumvent others." l 

Lord Campbell may say, that "the Lord Keeper 
was too much occupied with his official duties to be 
able to do more than kiss him, hear him occasionally 
recite a little piece he had learned by heart, and give 
him his blessing." 2 But it were gratuitous to infer 
thence that the child's filial emotions were indifferent. 
"We have, it is true, no records of his sorrow, mani- 
fested either in the form of affection, or of more cold 
regret as to the disadvantages to himself which were 
consequent upon the death of his father. But it is 
impossible that he did not feel both. The latter 
immediate distress we shall show presently; the 
former may be presumed from his invariably affec- 
tionate disposition, and the virtues of his parent. 
Francis Bacon lost his father when he most wanted 
him. No young man, who has had to undergo such 
a trial, will contest this. Be it that his parent was 
even inferior to himself, both in intelligence and in 
acquired station, he was still his father, the earthly 
being who had stood forth as his refuge and pro- 
tector ; to whom he had fled — in contradistinction to 
that shield of love and sympathy which his mother 
had thrown over him — for manly guardianship, for 
wholesome reproof, for counsel, for strong alliance. 

May such an one feel that his loss is irreparable, 
unless it brings him to seek the fatherhood of God 
in Christ Jesus ! 

i Works, iii. p. 93. 2 Campbell, ii. p. 275. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

BACON'S EAELT MANHOOD. 

Upon that sudden death of his father, which we 
have just mentioned, Francis Eacon was necessarily 
recalled home. He was the youngest of eight children. 
For his four brothers and three sisters Sir Nicholas 
Bacon had provided. For him, his favourite, he 
had, during the absence of Francis, set apart a con- 
siderable sum of money wherewith to purchase an 
estate for him. But, as far as this special deed 
was concerned, the Lord Keeper died intestate. 
And thus, when the object of such cherished inten- 
tions returned to England, he found himself in 
prospective poverty. He had had every warrant 
for presuming upon his father's almost unequalled 
influence as a statesman; he had had, as a young 
man, that father's purse during his pleasant sojourn 
abroad ; he repaired home, and found himself com- 
paratively denuded. 

We hear but little of his sisters; we find, how- 
ever, numerous proofs of his fraternal affection for his 
brother Anthony Bacon. He deserves to be com- 



28 bacon's early 

memorated. He was a learned man, had travelled 
much, was an eminent political negotiator, a faithful 
friend, and full of sympathy with his younger 
brother's philosophical pursuits. 

That Francis Bacon should have been so little 
associated with his family, is not particularly sur- 
prising. All his father's other children, with the 
exception of Anthony, were by a former wife. 
Nevertheless, as it seems from his will, Bacon main- 
tained through life a family attachment to one of his 
sisters, he bequeathing (in intention) to his " brother 
Constable," the husband, and to herself and their 
child, a large proof of his regard. What relations he 
now sustained with his exemplary and intelligent 
mother, we cannot say. 

We have now to regard him as placed in the most 
anxious deliberation about what should be his future 
course of life. Hitherto, notwithstanding his su- 
preme predilection for philosophy in spite of its 
retirement and reversionary rewards, he appeared to 
be destined to statesmanship, and his recent studies 
had been diplomatic. But now, without fortune, 
and, as he soon found when he became a candidate 
for a place, without friends, whither should he turn? 
Let us translate a passage from his "De Interpretation 
Naturae Proemium," in which he afterwards de- 
scribed his thoughts and feelings at this period : 
" Whilst I was surmising that I was born for pursuits 
useful to my fellow-men, and that statesmanship was 
among those pursuits ; whilst I was thinking of them 



siashood. 29 

as free to all, like the very air and water, I sought 
after that one which would be the most useful to the 
human commonwealth, and for which I was by 
mature the best fitted. But I found that there was 
nothing in that commonwealth so deserving as the 
invention and promotion of those new studies and 
arts by which man's life might be benefitted. . . . 
I judged that my own mind had a special familiarity 
and affinity with truth. Nevertheless, imbued as 
I was, both by birth and education, with political 
habits ; and undetermined in opinions, as was natural 
to a young man; and, moreover, thinking that I 
owed something to my country more special than 
to any other objects; and hoping that, if I could 
attain an honorable position in the state I might 
be able to fulfil my philosophical intentions with 
a greater facility of talent and of business habits, 
I have devoted myself to the study of civil 
science." 1 

It is thus obvious how great was the debate in his 
own mind. He decided, however, as the above 
extract has shown, for public life. Upon the wisdom 
of that choice no one can fairly determine. We 
believe that, so singularly large was he in affection 
for all the forms of human activity, no collegiate 
cloister could have contained his spirit; that, if by 
physical force he had been restrained there, the very 
sense of restraint would have degenerated into in- 
dignant inactivity; whereas his future multiplicity 

1 Works, ix. p. 313, 314. " Impetus Philosophici." 



30 BACONS EAKXY 

of pursuits, so apparently ungenial to his scholar- 
ship, only gave him a greater zest, and quickened 
him to a more expeditious earnestness, when in after 
days he obtained his temporary scientific seclu- 
sions. Just thus, though in a much less exalted range 
of life, that father bursts forth into all his paternal 
vivacity, when he meets those children from whom 
he has been debarred by the day's hard toil, who, if 
he had been with them all the day in comparative 
indolent repose, would have felt contented in giving 
them merely an unmeaning smile. 

Francis Bacon chose public life. Let us bear in 
mind that, for him, considering his former position, 
his habits, and the prospects on which he had most 
fairly calculated, he was miserably poor. He felt 
that it was necessary for him to seek a profession that 
might be lucrative. He became a barrister. He 
enrolled himself as a student at Gray's Inn. He 
felt such an affection for this legal college that, in 
after life, he built in its neighbourhood an elegant 
mansion, in which he, with rare intervals, lived until 
shortly before his death. Eawley, his ancient bio- 
grapher, says that there "his superior talents rendered 
him the ornament of the house, as the gentleness 
and affability of his deportment won him the affec- 
tion of all its members." * He was incorporated in 
the year 1580, in his twentieth year. His chambers, 
jSTo. 1, Gray's Inn Square, are still standing; a spot 
for the visit of the true scientific pilgrim. 

1 Works, v. p. 1. 



ilAXHOOD. 31 

But before he took this decisive step he had sought 
for some more promising pursuit. His maternal 
aunt was the wife of Lord Burleigh, the premier 
of queen Elizabeth for forty years ; so long and so 
confidentially did her majesty 'regard him. Though 
the one by influence, and the other by direct 
entreaty, was besought, Francis Bacon obtained 
nothing. 

This is the place for us to state that sinister 
influence which, it is affirmed, was brought to bear 
against Bacon's advancement, It is alleged by 
almost all writers, that Lord Burleigh was so earnest 
in his object to promote his own son, the future 
Sir Bobert Cecil, that he not merely looked upon 
any probable competitor with discountenance, but 
by positive acts endeavoured to ruin him in his 
candidateship ; and that his own nephew, Bacon, 
was so singularly promising in genius, that for this 
reason only he repulsed him. The poor heart of 
man is, at the best, but very little and very un- 
generous ; and so we may, in all historical candour, 
conclude that paternal anxiety operated as a motive 
on Lord Burleigh's mind. That there was much 
jealousy in his own, and in that of his son Sir 
Bobert, there can be no doubt. But, as we shall 
show hereafter, Bacon's pertinacity of solicitation 
must, of itself, have been regarded as almost unbear- 
able. 

AVe are, therefore, scarcely prepared to say with 
Mr. Macaulay and his more ancient biographers 



52 EACON'S EAELY 

that prospective envy was the sole cause of his uncle's 
disallowance of him. We shall see how miserably 
he erred in his canvass for himself in other par- 
ticulars; and it would be unjust to tax Lord Eurleigh 
and his son with so gratuitous and so bad a feeling, 
without our recollecting that the being who called 
it forth, forgot his own dignified propriety in the 
modes of his asking for their patronage. This we 
shall see. 

He was repulsed, and then he betook himself most 
vigorously to the study of the law. This was a fine 
proof of his mental elasticity. He never liked the 
law. Minute though he was in his observations in 
natural science, he shrank from the technicalities of 
the bar. He, the rather, flew away to the large 
generalizations of the jurisconsult. The pandects 
were far more to his taste than were the cavils and 
distinctions and refinements of the pleader. 

Tet, as Mr. Macaulay says, " It is certain that no 
man in that age, or indeed during the century and a 
half which followed, was better acquainted with the 
philosophy of law. His technical knowledge was 
quite sufficient, with the help of his admirable talents, 
and of his insinuating address, to procure clients. 
He rose very rapidly into business, and soon enter- 
tained hopes of being called within the bar." l 

It was about this time, while disconcerted in his 
projects of personal ambition; coldly treated by his 
powerfully hostile though unaggrieved relations; 

1 Macaulay's Essays, p. 350. 



MANHOOD. 33 

bent down by pecuniary necessity to his desk, to tax 
his memory with law authorities and law precedents, 
to handle a science full of thorns, and the very root of 
which was overspread with such a mass of dry wood, 
that it was inaccessible; that Francis Bacon, now 
about twenty-five years of age, indited that small 
book which he assures us of, though we have no copy 
of it, and which he called, in youthful vainglory, 
"Temporis Partus Maxima" 1 — the Greatest Birth 
of Time. 

Let us but strive to conceive of such a composition 
and such a moment. Francis Bacon is seated in his 
chambers. Around him there are books, but most of 
them from their vellum covers speak to him only of 
the past, pregnant with authority and dogmatism. 
There stand also the tomes of Plato and Aristotle. 
There were treatises, small and large, on the systems 
of Pythagoras and Heraclitus, Democritus and Parme- 
nides. The philosophical works of Proclus, of Cicero, 
the poem of Lucretius, and the more modern writ- 
ings of Patrizzi, Telesio, and Cardan were all there; and 
all had been reverently and thoroughly examined. 2 
The ten years which had elapsed since his leaving 
college (he was now only twenty-six) had not lessened 
his lively repugnance to the verbal tyranny of the 
Peripatetics, yet he shunned falling into the opposite 
errors of reckless anarchy and precipitation. For 
instance, severe as he was during his whole philoso- 

1 Works x. p. 330. 
'' Works : Impetus Philosophic!, vol. ix. p. 279. 



34 bacon's early 

phical career, in his condemnation of the theories of 
Aristotle, he never lost sight of those unparalleled 
attributes of the genius of the Stagirite, which have 
obtained a world's admiration. This little work, of 
which we have just spoken, and which he has men- 
tioned in his letter to Fulgentio, 1 was either never 
published, or passed without notice. We may how- 
ever hazard the conjecture, that it was the " Valerius 
Terminus of the Interpretation of Nature," 2 or the 
"Eilum Labyrinthi." That it was the first sugges- 
tion of his philosophy, is certain ; that it was the 
offspring of so young a mind, is without a parallel. 
But into its contents, which we can only gather on 
probability from his maturer writings, we must not 
inquire. 

The " Valerius Terminus " may be studied with 
the greatest advantage, although, in many respects, 
it justifies the words of Cuffe, the secretary of the 
Earl of Essex, when, on having read it, he remarked, 
" that a fool could not have written such a work, and 
a wise man would not. 3 

It is also likely that, at this period, he wrote the 
theme "in Praise of Knowledge." Vigorous and 
inspiring truths were these for so young a man to 
assert: "The mind is the man, and the knowledge 
of the mind. A man is but what he knoweth. The 
mind itself is but an accident to knowledge; for 
knowledge is a double of that which is. The truth 

1 Works : Impetus Philosophici, vol. x. p. 331. 
2 Vauzelles : vol. i. 18, note in. 3 Works, vol. vi. p. 253. 



MANHOOD. 35 

of being, and the truth of knowing, is all one. And 
the pleasures of the affections greater than the plea- 
sures of the senses." 1 

That, notwithstanding all such serious and ab- 
stract pursuits, he was ever alive to the enjoyments 
of his age, will appear from his prominent forward- 
ness in promoting the most popular amusement of the 
courtly circles of that day, namely, masques. The 
following is the first letter of his which we have on 
record; it appears to have been addressed to the 
Lord Keeper and Lord Chamberlain : — 

" It may please your good Lordships, 

"I am sorry the joint masque from the four Inns 
of Court faileth ; wherein I conceive there is no other ground of 
that event but impossibility. Nevertheless, because it faileth 
out that, at this time, Gray's Inn is well furnished of gallant 
young gentlemen, your Lordships may be pleased to know, that 
rather than this occasion shall pass without some demonstration 
of affection from the Inns of Court, there are a dozen gentlemen 
of Gray's Inn, that out of the honour which they bear to your 
Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain, to whom at their last 
masque they were so much bounden, will be ready to furnish a 
masque ; wishing it were in their power to perform it according 
to their mind. And so for the present I humbly take my leave, 
resting 

u Your Lordship's very humble and much bounden 
"F R - Bacon." 2 

Lord Campbell observes: "His industry is the 
more commendable, as he had other powerful temp- 

l Works, vol. ii. p. 123. 2 Harleian MSS., vol. 7042, No. 2. See 

also Bacon's Essay " Of Masques," vol. ii. p. 345, 



36 bacon's eaely manhood. 

tations to withstand. Prom his lively wit, from his 
having been in the best society at home, and from 
his travels abroad, he was a most delightful compa- 
nion, and his society was universally coveted ; yet he 
courteously resisted these allurements, and, without 
losing popularity, remained master of his time. On 
high days and holidays he assisted with great glee in 
all the festivities of the Inn ; and at the request of 
the Benchers, he laid out walks in the garden, and 
planted trees, some of which, on a spot which got the 
name of " Lord Bacon's Mount, " very recently 
remained." 1 



1 Campbell, vol. ii. p. 280. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

EACOjS t CALLED TO THE BAR. SETTOE TO THE CE0W2T 

EOB, E^LOYIIEXT. 

This comparatively private life of Francis Bacon 
was soon to undergo a change. JSTever, during the 
long course of his public and most anxious career, 
were his high philosophical pursuits suspended ; 
although their interruptions were so many and 
so great. 

"We cannot say that he was driven into active life 
by necessity. He was now about twenty-six years 
of age ; and four years afterwards (although he had 
made no money), he wrote to his uncle, the Lord 
Treasurer Burleigh, soliciting political employment, 
adding : " And if your Lordship will not carry me on, 
I will not do as Anaxagoras did, who reduced himself 
with contemplation unto voluntary poverty; but 
this I will do ; I will sell the inheritance that I have, 
and purchase some lease of quick revenue, or some 
office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so 
give over all care of service, and become some sorry 
bookmaker, or a true pioneer in that mine of truth, 



38 BACON CALLED TO THE BAB. 

which, he said, lay so deep." ' And his later remarks 
reveal the debate which was, at this earlier period, 
within him, about the possibility of combining civil 
functions with scientific habits and purposes, where 
(as in his " Advancement of Learning," and its more 
complete development, "De Augmentis Scientiarum") 
he adduces, in words of his own rare eloquence, 
instances of their union : " And that learning should 
take up too much time or leisure : I answer, the most 
active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath, 
no question, many vacant times of leisure while he 
expecteth the tides and returns of business (except 
he be either tedious and of no dispatch, or lightly and 
unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may 
be better done by others) : and then the question is but, 
how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled 
and spent ; whether in pleasures or in studies, as 
was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary 
2Eschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and 
told him that his orations did smell of the lamp : 
' Indeed, ' said Demosthenes, * there is a great 
difference between the things that you and I do by 
lamp-light.' So as no man need doubt that learning 
will expulse business, but rather it will keep and 
defend the possession of the mind against idleness 
and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter, 
to the prejudice of both." 2 

We have quoted this, as most probably descriptive 
of those thoughts which affected him at this crisis 

l Worksj v. p. 207. 2 Ibid, i. p. 16. 



STJITOB TO THE CROWN. 39 

of his life. Science and ambition were suitors for 
his hand, and he reasoned upon not merely the 
possibility, but the high wisdom of making an equal 
covenant with both. He made that covenant. As we 
have said before, we believe he was right. We can no 
more readily accord monasticism to literature, than 
we can to religion. ]STay, we object to it ; not so much 
because every association of caste must, in propor- 
tion, limit and prejudice, and therefore prevent the 
mind under its influence from a sympathy with and 
a knowledge of the universal affinities of truth; but 
because we feel assured that, however professional 
that mind may be in its own department, it will 
even there have less vivacity and less vigour, and 
therefore less success, if, instead of having the 
chances of varied winds and currents, it gives itself 
up to one trade-wind and one current, and thus 
exposes itself to all the hazards of a calm. 

Francis Bacon was called to the bar in 1586, 
when scarcely twenty-five years of age. The rules 
of the profession then still kept him from practice, 
until he should be called "within bars." l In his 
eagerness for opportunities for action, he sought 
from Lord Burleigh a dispensation from this delay. 
But his uncle, now petulant from gout and old age, 

1 " In 1586 he was called to the outer bar, but I apprehencr, according 
to the laws then prevailing-, was not entitled to practise till he had got 
another step, which was coming within bars. Some writers, not un- 
naturally, suppose that this was an application for a silk gown, and that 
Bacon having got into great practice in stuff, now wished to be " called 
within the bar," in the modern sense of the phrase; whereas, in reality, 
his ambition then was only to become " an inner barrister " before his 
time, that he might be entitled to begin practice in court."— Campbell, 
ii. p. 281. 



40 BACON CALLED TO THE BAE. 

returned him a rebuke for his youthful " arrogancy 
and overweening." His answer, if ingenuous, ought 
to have disarmed his powerful relative, for "he sub- 
missively promised to profit Jbj such good advice ; 
and so wishing unto his lordship all honour, and 
to himself continuance of his lordship's good opinion, 
with mind and means to deserve it, he humbly took 
his leave.' ' * 

This, his modesty, soon obtained its reward. He 
was, at an earlier period than usual, admitted to the 
" inner bar." The Society of Gray's Inn also elected 
him a bencher, and gave him^a still more flattering 
testimony, in appointing him to the readership in 
law. In this he first displayed his past devotion 
to the preparatory studies of his profession, and gave 
sure and certain promise of that characteristic elo- 
quence for which he was afterNvards so much dis- 
tinguished. He seems to have acted upon the 
conviction, which he recorded afterwards in " the 
Advancement of Learning," that "it is a thing not 
hastily to be condemned, to clothe and adorn the 
obscurity even of philosophy itself, with sensible 
and plausible elocution; for hereof we have great 
examples in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, 
and of Plato also in some degree." 2 It is most 
probable that his work "On the Elements of the 
Common Laws of England," which he published 
some eight years later, was the outline of his 
" Eeadings." 3 

l Campbell, ii. p. 281. 2 Works, i. p. 28. 3 ibid, iv. p. 1. 



ST7IT0E TO THE CEOW>\ 41 

As the result of his eminence as a law lecturer, 
perhaps in grateful recollection of his father's long 
and faithful services, perhaps too from her remem- 
brance of the nattering passage which had been 
between herself and " her young Lord Keeper,'' 
queen Elizabeth appointed Francis Bacon, when he 
was only twenty-eight years of age, her majesty's 
" Counsel Extraordinary." It is more than possible 
that she had been intensely gratified by the incense 
of adulation which the young lawyer waved before 
her majesty, both by letters of customary homage 
and above all, by his " Discourse in the Praise of his 
Sovereign." l We hold, that so sadly blind is our 
heart's vanity, that provided the insincerity of the 
flatterer be not audible, there are no terms of com- 
pliment so strong, as that they should utterly fail of 
producing a favourable impression. And seeing that, 
the habit and idiom of the times being taken into 
account, this eulogium on her state-wisdom, on her 
disinterestedness, on her clemency and beneficence, on 
her glorious contrast to all contemporary sovereigns, 
and last, not least, on her beauty (withered though 
she was), was of the highest order of elegance, and 
relieved by the noblest thoughts, we cannot wonder 
if it fostered her ancient predilection for himself. 

This was an honour which had never been con- 
ferred before. But it brought him no solid advan- 
tage, and it prematurely committed him to a position 
which was political, more than professional; and thus 

1 Works, iii. p. 22. 



42 BACON CALLED TO THE BAR. 

plunged him, in very early life, into intrigues which 
we must now proceed to detail. 

Before doing so, however, we must mention that 
Francis Bacon's practice at the bar still continued 
small, and far from lucrative. In one letter to his 
uncle, Lord Burleigh, he had the mortification to 
have to say: " Though I cannot accuse myself that 
I am either prodigal or slothful, yet my health is not 
to spend, nor my course to get." In another letter, 
and in a still more desponding mood : " I see well 
the bar will be my bier." These sad expressions 
were uttered when he, very undignifiedly, be- 
sought some state employment from the lord 
treasurer. He succeeded, but in obtaining only 
the reversion of the registrarship of the Star Cham- 
ber, worth about £1600 a year; and he had to wait 
for it for twenty years; so that, with a natural im- 
patience, he said of it: "It was like another man's 
fair ground battening upon his house, which might 
mend his prospect, but did not fill his barns." 

Mixed up with almost servile entreaties for place, 
we find such noble words as the following : "I con- 
fess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I 
have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all 
knowledge to be my province ; and if I could purge 
it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with 
frivolous disputations, confutations, and verbosities; 
the other, with blind experiments and auricular 
traditions and impostures, hath committed so many 
spoils; I hope I should bring in industrious ob- 



SUITOR TO THE CftOWST. 43 

servations, grounded conclusions, and profitable 
inventions and discoveries ; the best state of that 
province. This, whether it be curiosity, or vain 
glory, or nature, or, if one take it favourably, philan- 
thropia, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be 
removed. And I do easily see, that place of any 
reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of 
more wits than of a man's own : which is the thing 
I greatly affect." 1 

Herein it must be evident with what a subordinate 
purpose he craved after competency ; how, although 
there were intermingling with it those strong im- 
pulses of political ambition and love of magnificence 
which caused his ultimate downfall, there was ever 
uppermost in his mind his passion for philosophy; 
and how he would have welcomed quietude from 
pecuniary care, chiefly as a facility for its prose- 
cution. 

And further, we find that even moral presenti- 
ments strengthened this wish for a walk in life 
less obtrusive, and less free from temptations than 
that of diplomatic struggle. "My estate, to confess 
a truth to your lordship, is weak and indebted, and 
needeth comfort ; for both my father, though I think 
I had the greatest part in his love to all his children, 
yet in his wisdom, served me in as a last comer ; and 
myself, in mine own industry, have rather refused 
and aspired to virtue than to gain: whereof I am 
not yet wise enough to repent me, &c. 2 

i Works, v. p. 207. 2 Ibid, Yi. p. 33. 



CHAPTER VI. 

COMMENCEMENT OF BACON'S POLITICAL CAKEEB. 

Befoee we enter upon that "sea of politics" on 
which Bacon was about to sail, we must take a 
survey of the frequent storms and shoals which 
then made its navigation more than ordinarily dan- 
gerous. 

The lord treasurer Burleigh, of whom we have 
already spoken, together with his son, Sir Robert 
Cecil, — the one the uncle, the other the cousin-german 
of Bacon, — were the chiefs of queen Elizabeth's 
ministry. Sir Walter Raleigh, and Coke, the solicitor 
general, were their two most powerful confederates. 
It would seem singular that the Earl of Essex, 
perhaps the most beloved of all her majesty's 
favourites, placed himself in " opposition," notwith- 
standing her unqualified confidence in her ministers. 
But it was far different from the parliamentary 
"opposition" of more recent days. It was no 
dissent from the home or foreign policy of the 
government. It was rather a personal antagonism, 
having for its object to obtain an exclusive ascendancy 



EACOX's POLITICAL CAEEE2. 45 

in the queen's favour, and in the distribution of crown 
patronage. And thence it followed that the conflict 
was all the more virulent. 

The Earl of Essex had scarcely reached more than 
the prime of his youth. His high birth gave him a 
natural access to his sovereign; and constant inter- 
course, aided by a bravery which was chivalrous, 
and a generosity of character which bordered on 
romance, facilitated his ascent in her affections. 
His education had been liberal, and his love for 
letters and for literary men attracted to his circle 
the most distinguished writers of the day. In the 
crowd which thronged his halls, there might be seen 
two of the greatest spirits of any age ; the myriad- 
minded Shakespeare, and the universal- minded 
Bacon. The one was cherished by his own choice 
friend, the Earl of Southampton; the other, by Essex 
himself. 

It will be pardonable, — it is a necessary digres- 
sion, — to advert to the utter ignorance which Bacon 
seems to have had of Shakespeare, although they 
must have often met each other, both in the mansions 
of these two noblemen, and, more distantly, at the 
exhibitions of the drama before the queen. At the 
time of which we are now speaking, the fame of 
Shakespeare, among his contemporaries, was estab- 
lished. Even then he is spoken of by a critic of the 
day, as indisputably the greatest of English drama- 
tists. And our marvel is, not so much that, as a 
poet, he escaped Bacon's admiration (who, though he 



46 bacon's political caeeeb. 

had an imaginative faculty almost equal to his intel- 
lectual, had nothing of that passion which poetry 
demands), as that the ever-varying phases of human 
character into which the great dramatist multiplied 
himself, should have been overlooked by one who 
was as profound a moralist as he was a natural 
philosopher. 

But to return: Essex, the first at court, at the 
tournament, and in the field ; more ennobled by his 
acquirements than by his peerage, and more loved 
for his patronage of science than for his fashionable 
elegance, was also the idol of the people. Though 
far inferior in the higher faculties to Sir Walter 
Ealeigh, who was now past his prime, he was his 
true successor in the union of the martial and mental 
graces, of high breeding and popular companionship. 

Such a leader of the " opposition " must have often 
alarmed Lord Burleigh and his colleagues, and they 
must have scanned with the utmost anxiety every 
new member that was added to his phalanx. 

How great then must have been their chagrin 
when they found Bacon was enrolled against them ! 
A new parliament had been summoned, and the 
young barrister and " counsel extraordinary" took 
his seat for Middlesex. 1 The prime minister and 
his son had kept down their aspiring relative; had 
called him before the queen "a speculative man, 

1 Bacon, however, had heen a silent member in three previous parlia- 
ments, viz. in 1585, for Melcombe Regis ; in 1586, for Taunton ; and in 
1588, for Liverpool. 

Vide Browne Willis's Notitia Parliamentaria, and D'Ewes's Journals, 



BACON ? S POLITICAL CABEEE. 47 

indulging himself in philosophical reveries, and cal- 
culated more to perplex than to promote public 
business;" and he was now determined to revenge 
himself. With consummate tact, instead of instantly 
proclaiming his defiance, he seized, as the subject of 
his first speech, the topic which of all others showed 
his reading to have been as practical as it was vast. 
It was that of "law reform." "I did," he said, 
"take great contentment in her Majesty's speech, 
delivered by the lord keeper, how that it was a 
thing not to be done suddenly, nor scarce a year 
would suffice to purge the statute book, the volumes 
of law being so many in number, that neither 
common people can half practise them, nor lawyers 
sufficiently understand them. The Eomans appointed 
ten men, who were to collect or recall all former 
laws, and to set forth those twelve tables so much of 
all men commended. And Louis ix, king of Trance, 
did the like in reforming his laws." .... The 
house was seized with admiration, and he then took 
the position, which he never lost, as the first speaker 
in that assembly. * 

This speech has another point of interest. It is 
one of many illustrations how, in his early manhood, 

1 " There happened in my time," says Ben Jonson, speaking of 
Bacon, "one noble speaker, who 'was full of gravity in his speaking, 
His language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly cen- 
sorious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, 
or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member 
of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not 
cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded when he 
spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man 
had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man who 
heard him was lest he should make an end." 
D'Ewes's Journals, 1593. 



48 BACONS POLITICAL CAHEEH. 

he adopted great purposes to which he clung tena- 
ciously throughout his life. To realize this "law 
reform" was his fond ambition up to his last, as well 
as in the first days of his political career. Still 
earlier were his outlines of that capacious philosophy, 
the filling up of which absorbed every leisure moment, 
and to which he fell a martyr. There was a con- 
tinuous oneness in his mental development. It was 
an unbroken intellectual manifestation. Inconsis- 
tencies, chasms it had none. Alas, that such things 
were left to disfigure his moral life ! 

The next step which he took in parliament was, 
as far as his ambitious calculations were concerned, 
very ill advised. Most probably, it was simply the 
movement of his party, and had as its object the 
embarrassment of the ministry merely. It was a 
proposal to modify the government measures for 
supplies. The question was then a far more personal 
one with the sovereign than it could be now ; and 
queen Elizabeth regarded it as an attack upon 
herself. In his speech " to the subsidy demanded, 
he propounded three questions, which he desired 
might be answered : the first, impossibility or diffi- 
culty; the second, danger or discontentment; and 
thirdly, a better manner of supply. For impossibi- 
lity, the poor man's rent is such as they are not able 
to yield it. The gentlemen must sell their plate, and 
farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid ; and 
as for us, we are here to search the wounds of the 
realm, and not to skin them over. We shall breed 



bacon's political caeeee. 49 

discontentment in paying these subsidies, and en- 
danger her majesty's safety, which must consist 
more in the love of the people than in their wealth. 
This being granted, other princes hereafter will look 
for the like, so that we shall put an evil precedent on 
ourselves and our posterity. " He concluded with a 
motion, which was carried, for a " committee to 
deliberate and consult in what proportion they might 
now relieve her majesty with subsidies, in respect of 
those many and great enemies against whose power 
and malice she was to provide." 1 

We believe, as we have just hinted, that this was 
a party measure. But the " opposition " in general, 
and Bacon in particular, showed a singular want of 
political sagacity in adopting it. As yet, there had 
been nothing of that resistance to the crown which, 
soon afterwards, became so vehement ; and therefore, 
it cannot be supposed that Bacon's resolution was 
intentionally directed against her majesty. But her 
minister had possessed her mind against Lord Essex, 
as endeavouring to control her, and the haughty 
monarch, shrewd though she was, viewed this speech 
of Bacon as one of his leader's efforts to effect his 
purpose. The partisan was slowly, if ever forgiven. 
But, thenceforth, the honourable, high-minded Essex 
identified Bacon's interests with his own. 

We would ask for especial attention to this fact. 
Hereafter, we shall have to speak with severe dis- 
tinctness upon Bacon's conduct to Lord Essex, and 

i D'Ewes's Journals, 1593. 
I) 



50 bacon's political careeb. 

to dwell upon the obligations of good offices and of 
wealth under which the latter laid the former. It 
must therefore be borne in mind, that their fortunes 
became allied ; and so, conventionally considered, 
the bounty of Lord Essex was not an alms to the 
political follower who had been injured by his zeal 
in his leader's tactics. Bacon's subsequent conduct 
must be tested by the laws of friendship solely. 

He soon found himself in a critical dilemma. He 
was aspiring to some political or legal appointment ; 
but to his great dismay, he found he had incensed 
her majesty, and both the lord treasurer and the 
lord keeper were commanded to inform him, " that 
he must never more look to her for favour or promo- 
tion." ' 

Upon this communication he wrote to the lord 
treasurer Burleigh : — 

" It may please your lordship, 

"I was sorry to find, by your lordship's speech 
yesterday, that my last speech in parliament, delivered in dis- 
charge of my conscience and duty to God, her majesty, and my 
country, was offensive. If it were misreported, I would be glad 
to attend your lordship to disavow anything I said not; if it 
were misconstrued, I would be glad to expound myself, to exclude 
any sense I meant not. If my heart be misjudged by imputa- 
tion of popularity or opposition, by any envious or officious 
informer, I have great wrong; and the greater, because the 
manner of my speech did most evidently shew, that I spake only 
and simply to satisfy my conscience, and not with any advantage 
or policy to sway the cause : and my terms carried all significa- 
tion of duty and zeal toward her majesty and her service. It is 



BACON'S POLITICAL CAItEEB. 51 

true that, from the beginning, whatsoever was above a double 
subsidy, I did wish might, for precedent sake, appear to be 
extraordinary, and, for discontent's sake, might not have been 
levied upon the poorer sort ; though otherwise, I wished it as 
rising, as I think this will prove, and more. This was my mind, 
I confess it: and, therefore, I most humbly pray your good 
'lordship, first, to continue me in your own good opinion ; and 
then to perform the part of an honourable friend towards your 
poor servant and alliance, in drawing her majesty to accept of 
the sincerity and simplicity of my heart, and to bear with the 
rest, and restore me to her majesty's good favour, which is to 
me dearer than my life. And so, &c. 

"Your lordship's most humble in all duty, 
April, 1593. " F R - Bacon/' i 

He also wrote to Sir John Puckering, the lord 
keeper : — 

w My lord, 

u It is a great grief to me, joined with marvel, 
that her majesty should retain an hard conceit of my speeches 
in parliament. It might please her sacred majesty to think 
what my end should be in these speeches, if it were not duty, 
and duty alone. I am not so simple, but I know the common 
beaten way to please. And whereas popularity hath been 
objected, I muse what care I should take to please many, that 
take a course of life to deal with few. On the other side, her 
majesty's grace and particular favour towards me hath been 
such, as I esteem no worldly thing above the comfort to enjoy 
it, except it be the conscience to deserve it. But if the not 
seconding of some particular person's opinion shall be presump- 
tion, and to differ upon the manner, shall be to impeach the end ; 
it shall teach my devotion not to exceed wishes, and those in 
silence. Yet, notwithstanding, to speak vainly as in grief, it 

i Works, v. r . 213. 



52 bacon's political career. 

may be her majesty hath discouraged as good a heart as ever 
looked toward her service, and as void of self-love. And so in 
more grief than I can well express, and much more than I can 
well dissemble, I leave your lordship, being as ever, 

fc Your lordship's intirely devoted, &c. 

"F R - Bacon." i 

There is nothing pusillanimous or sycophantic in 
either of these letters, save where, in the latter, 
he says, " It shall teach my devotion not to ex- 
ceed wishes, and those in silence," he may be 
thought to surrender up himself to the future dicta- 
tion of his sovereign. Unhappily he did so, and 
that most completely. Thenceforth his speeches, 
although numerous and decided, were studiously free 
of every thing that could be offensive to her. 

But he was soon to find, both that the royal 
memory was tenacious of his fault, and that the 
friendship of the Earl of Essex only placed him at 
an increased disadvantage. The solicitor general- 
ship, April 10, 1594, became vacant by Coke's being 
made attorney general, and there arose a long and 
earnest struggle for his former office. We have now 
to present Bacon in the attitude of a suitor, and 
with most of those painful attributes which that 
character involves. We have to give instances not 
only of his ambition, which was both reasonable and 
noble, but of a degree of importunity, of little- 
minded address, of impatience, and of petulance 
under disappointment, which were utterly unworthy 

1 Works, vi. p. 2. 



BACON S POLITICAL CAEEEE. 53 

of his high claims and his boasted philosophy. Yet 
we must not fail to qualify much of our surprise 
at his proceedings; for at that day a mode of can- 
vassing for political preferment was adopted which, 
in our own time, would be regarded as degrading 
. as it would be sure to be unsuccessful. 

No candidate could have had more plausible 
grounds for hope. He was the nephew of the 
prime minister and the cousin of Eobert Cecil, the 
Secretary of State elect. He was " counsel ex- 
traordinary " to the queen, though somewhat out 
of favour. His preeminent influence in parliament 
made his official alliance important to the crown 
even. The majority of the judges and the bar gave 
him their cordial suffrages ; so that, to use his own 
expression, he was " voiced with great expectation, 
and the wishes of all men." Added to all this, he 
could count upon the most faithful aid, in the influ- 
ence of the Earl of Essex upon the mind of queen 
Elizabeth. If he failed, he was sure it could arise 
only from some sinister and unseen machinations. 

We have the letters in which he besought the 
friendly assistance of the lord keeper Puckering, 
Lord Burleigh, and Sir Eobert Cecil; but as we 
shall have, on other and more critical junctures, to 
quote similar petitions, we omit them. It is dif- 
ficult to determine whether the last two favoured 
his suit with her majesty, or, with disingenuous 
secresy, opposed it. Lord Burleigh wrote to him in 
reply:— 



54 BACON'S rOLITICAL CAREER. 

" Nephew, 

" I have no leisure to write much ; but, for 
answer, I have attempted to place you; but her majesty hath 
required the lord keeper to give to her the names of diverse 
lawyers to be preferred, wherewith he made me acquainted, and 
I did name you as a meet man, whom his lordship allowed in 
way of friendship for your father's sake ; but he made scruple 
to equal you with certain whom he named — as Brograve and 
Branthwayt, whom he specially commendeth. But I will con- 
tinue the remembrance of you to her majesty, and implore my 
Lord of Essex's help. 

" Your loving uncle r 
" Sept. 21th, 1593. " N. Burleigh." i 

This was cold and politic, but we cannot call it 
insincere. Moreover, his cousin, Sir Eobert Cecil, 
wrote to him in terms still more favourable, and 
gave advice which vindicates its own honesty. It 
would seem that, since his burst of patriotism in 
his speech upon the subsidies, Bacon, the "counsel 
extraordinary," had been refused audience with her 
majesty, and Cecil urges him to redoubled efforts to 
obtain it; "for," he says, "as I ever told you, it 
is not likely to find the queen apt to give an office, 
when the scruple is not removed of her forbearance 
to speak with you. This being not yet perfected, 
may stop good when the hour comes of conclusion, 
though it be but a trifle, and questionless, would 
be straight dispatched, if it were luckily handled." l 
Bacon tried in vain to adopt this advice. 

We can reconcile these marks of good feeling 
towards Francis Bacon, with the disfavour which 

' 1 Works, vi. p. 5. 2 Ibid. 



L1C0X S POLITICAL CABEEB. 

these two relations did unquestionably exhibit when 
matters came to a crisis, only upon the suspicion 
that they felt it expedient to shape their conduct 
according to the inclination of the queen. 

The lord keeper Puckering' s hostility was un- 
• qualified. Something in the bearing or literary 
pursuits of the young barrister, had provoked this 
punctilious devotee to the black-lettered law-book. 1 

This last circumstance may have given Eacon some 
moments of disquietude. Eut, as yet, the influence 
of Lord Essex had been all powerful. It was now to 
meet with an ominous repulse, and the queen gave it, 
not so much because she was implacable against his 
friend, as because she was determined to check the 
Earl himself. 

It must be admitted, that the behaviour of Essex 
was overbearing towards even the haughty queen 
Elizabeth. So long as she could suppose herself to 
be the only one aware of it, it was not merely pos- 
sible, but probable, that her affection took a self- 
soothing pleasure in forgiving it. Eut the Earl's 
enemies were as subtle as they were numerous. 
Looks of surprise, inuendoes, at first artfully delicate 
but at last more unreserved, met her eye and ear. 
Her dignity was on the eve of compromise. And, at 
length, though late, the spirit of a Tudor showed itself 
in an obstinate, self-sacrificing resistance. 

The correspondence of the Earl of Essex with 
Francis Eacon upon this occasion, deserves our histo- 

i Works, v. p. 223. 



56 bacon's political caeeee. 

rical study for this, as well as for the exquisite 
unselfishness of its friendship : — 

44 Sir, 

tl I wrote not to you till I had had a second con- 
ference with the queen, because the first was spent only in 
compliments ; she in the beginning excepted all business ; this 
day she hath seen me again. After I had followed her humour 
in talking of those things which she could entertain me with, I 
told her, in my absence I had written to Sir Robert Cecil, to 
solicit her to call you to that place ; and she knew not how great 
comfort I should take in it. Her answer in playing just was, 
that she came not to me for that ; I should talk of those things 
when I came to her, not when she came to me ; the term was 
coming, and she would advise. I would have replied, but she 
stopped my mouth. To-morrow, or the next day, I will go to 
her, and then this excuse will be taken away. When I know 
more, you shall know more ; and so I end, full of pain in my 
head, which makes me write thus confusedly. 

" Your most affectionate friend, 

"Essex." 1 

The following letter is not dated, but it is evi- 
dently the first upon this subject : — 

" Mr. Bacon, 

" Your letter met me here yesterday. When I 
came, I found the queen so wayward, as I thought it no fit time 
to deal with her in any sort, especially since her choler grew 
towards myself, which I have well satisfied this day, and will 
take the first opportunity I can to move your suit. And if you 
come hither, I pray you let me know still where you are. And 
so, being full of business, I must end, wishing you what you 
wish to yourself. 

" Your assured friend, 

" Essex." 2 
i Works, v. p. 14. 2 ibid, p. 4. 



bacon's political cahees. 57 

There are also many other letters upon the same 
subject, from which it will be necessary for us to 
give only brief extracts. For instance : Essex thus 
addresses the lord keeper : — 

"The want of assistance from them which should be 
• Mr. Fr. Bacon's friends, makes me the more industrious myself, 
and the more earnest in soliciting mine own friends. Upon me 
the labour must lie of his establishment, and upon me the dis- 
grace will light of his being refused. Therefore, I pray your 
lordship, now account me not as a solicitor of my friend's cause, 
but as a party interested in this ; and employ all your lordship's 
favour to me, or strength for me, in procuring a short and 
speedy end. For though I know it will never be carried any 
other way, yet I hold both my friend and myself disgraced by 
this protraction.' , 1 

Again: the Earl thus assures his impatient 
friend : — 

" I went yesterday to the queen through the galleries, in 
the morning, afternoon, and at night. I had long speech with 
her of you, wherein I urged both the point of your extra- 
ordinary sufficiency, proved to me not only by your last 
argument, but by the opinion of all men I spake withal; and 
the point of mine own satisfaction, which, I protested, should 
be exceeding great, if, for all her unkindness and discomforts 
past, she should do this one thing for my sake. To the first 
she answered, that the greatness of your friends, as of my lord 
treasurer and myself, did make men give a more favourable 
testimony than else they would do, thinking thereby they 
pleased us. And that she did acknowledge you had a great 
wit, and an excellent gift of speech, and much other good 
learning. But in law, she rather thought you could make show 
to the uttermost of your knowledge, than that you were deep, 
i Works, v. p. 227. 



58 BACON S POLITICAL CAHEEB. 

To the second she said, she showed her mislike to the suit, as 
well as I had done my affection in it ; and that if there were a 
yielding, it was fitter to be of my side. I then added, that this 
was an answer, with which she might deny me all things, if she 
did not grant them at the first, which was not her manner to 
do. But her majesty had made me suffer and give way in 
many things else; which all I should bear, not only with 
patience but great contentment, if she would but grant my 
humble suit in this one. And for the pretence of the appro- 
bation given you upon partiality, that all the world, lawyers, 
judges, and all could not be partial to you ; for somewhat you 
were crossed for their own interest, and some for their friends ; 
but yet all did yield to your merit. She did in this as she 
useth in all, went from a denial to a delay, and said, when the 
council were all here, she would think of it ; and there was no 
haste in determining of the place. To which I said, that my 
sad heart had need of hasty comfort ; and therefore her majesty 
must pardon me, if I were hasty and importunate in it." x . . . 

These letters, detailing as they do the most 
characteristic points of intercourse between Lord 
Essex and queen Elizabeth, are singularly interest- 
ing. They throw a genuine light upon that disposi- 
tion for coquetry which this great female sovereign 
ever indulged, and which she could not lay aside 
even when the topics were political. They prove the 
consummate address of Lord Essex, and his watch- 
fulness of that state of mind which he, in another 
letter, with somewhat of masculine irreverence speaks 
of: "She doth not contradict confidently; which 
they that know the minds of women say, is a sign 
of yielding." And they also prove the earnestness of 

1 Works, vi. p. 14. 



bacon's political career. 59 

his affection for Bacon ; for, after having made every 
allowance for his personal pride, which was committed 
in this suit, no one can deny the peril to which he 
exposed himself by his importunity, or the ingenuous 
spirit with which he identified himself with his friend. 
- Bacon's friends were confident of his ultimate 
success : " One hundred pounds to fifty, you shall be 
her solicitor," said Mr. Foulke Greville. But the 
aspirant was worn out with a delay, which even a 
happy issue could have scarcely redeemed, and he 
answered: ""What though the master of the rolls, 
and my Lord of Essex, and yourself, and others, think 
my case without doubt ; yet, in the mean time, I 
have a hard condition to stand, so that whatever 
service I do to her majesty, it shall be thought but to 
be servitium viscatum, 1 lime twigs and fetches to place 
myself; and so I shall have envy, not thanks. This 
is a course to quench all good spirits, and to corrupt 
every man's nature, which will, I fear, much hurt 
her majesty's service in the end. I have been like a 
piece of stuff bespoken in the shop ; and if her 
majesty will not take me, it may be, the selling by 
parcels will be more gainful. For to be, as I told 
you, like a child following a bird, which when he is 
nearest, flieth away, and lighteth a little before, and 
then the child after it again, and so in infinitum — 
I am weary of it, as also of wearying my good 
Mends." 2 

We must add another letter, and that because 

* The words "lime twigs and fetches" give the meaning. 2 Works, y. 241. 



60 bacon's political cabeek. 

it is one of the very few instances in which the 
mind of Francis Bacon recoiled at the servility of 
the course which he was pursuing, and asserted its 
own dignity and claims. It is addressed to the 
queen : — 

" Madam, 

" Bemembering that your majesty had been gra- 
cious to me, both in countenancing me, and conferring upon me 
the reversion of a good place, and perceiving that your majesty 
had taken some displeasure towards me, both these were argu- 
ments to move me to offer unto your majesty my service, to the 
end to have means to deserve your favour, and to repair my 
error. Upon this ground, I affected myself to no great matter, 
but only to a place of my profession, such as I do see divers 
younger in proceeding to myself, and men of no great note, do 
without blame aspire unto. But if any of my friends do press 
this matter, I do assure your majesty my spirit is not with them. 

" It sufficeth me that I have let your majesty know, that I am 
ready to do that for the service, which I never would do for mine 
own again. And if your majesty like others better, I shall, with 
the Lacedaemonian, be glad, that there is such a choice of abler 
men than myself. Your majesty's favour, indeed, and access to 
your royal person, I did ever, encouraged by your own speeches, 
seek and desire ; and I would be very glad to be redintegrate in 
that. But I will not wrong mine own good mind so much, as 
to stand upon that now, when your majesty may conceive I do 
it but to make my profit of it. But my mind turneth upon other 
wheels than those of profit. The conclusion shall be, that I wish 
your majesty served answerable to yourself. Principis est virtus 
maxima nosse snos. l Thus I most humbly crave pardon of my 
boldness and plainness. God preserve your majesty." 2 

This state of anxiety and suspense had continued 

1 "A knowledge of his subjects is the greatest excellence in a 
sovereign." 2 Works, vi. p. 6. 



EACOX's POLITICAL CAREER. Gl 

from April 10th, 1594, a period of eighteen months, 
when at last Essex and Bacon had the inexpressible 
mortification to learn that Mr. Serjeant Fleming was 
appointed. By this unparalleled delay, and this 
unfair decision, her majesty had secured a double 
purpose. She had driven the Earl to the extreme of 
suppliancy on his friend's behalf, and then refused 
him, in order to prove her freedom from his thral- 
dom. Eurther, she had placed Bacon under delibe- 
rate and long torture, and withheld the only balm 
that could have healed him, in order to gratify her 
anger at his patriotic popularity. 

But the noble heart of Essex forgot its own wrongs, 
and felt only for the humiliating discomfiture of 
Bacon. In the latter s own words: " After the 
queen had denied me the solicitor's place, for which 
his lordship had been a long and earnest suitor on my 
behalf, it pleased him to come to me from Richmond 
to Twickenham Park, and brake with me, and said : 
' ILr. Bacon, the queen hath denied me the place for 
you, and hath placed another ; I know you are the 
least part of your own matter; but you fare ill, 
because you have chosen me for your mean and 
dependance ; you have spent your time and thoughts 
in my matters : I die (these were his very words) if 
I do not somewhat towards your fortune ; you shall 
not deny to accept a piece of land which I will bestow 
upon you.' wl Bacon accepted it, and afterwards sold 
it for £1800. 

1 Works, iii. p. 21-1. 



62 HACON'S TOLITICAL CAREER. 

His own mind was deplorably dispirited. Some 
eight months before, on the receipt of a discouraging 
letter from Lord Essex, he had said : " I must confess 
this very delay hath gone so near me, as it hath 

almost overthrown my health I cannot but 

conclude with myself, that no man ever read a more 
exquisite disgrace ; and therefore, truly, my lord, I 
was determined, if her majesty reject me, this to do. 
My nature can take no evil ply ; but I will, by God's 
assistance, with this disgrace of my fortune, and yet 
with that comfort of the good opinion of so many 
honourable and worthy persons, retire myself with a 
couple of men to Cambridge, and there spend my life 
in my studies and contemplations, without looking 
back." 1 Now, however, when the suit was decided, a 
sensation of shame stole upon him; and, as if his re- 
tirement to Cambridge would not be privacy enough, 
he determined on foreign travel. And yet, even in 
his most melancholy moments he held fast his 
elasticity : " I have lost some opinion, some time, 
and some means ; this is my account : but then for 
opinion, it is a blast that goeth and cometh ; for time, 
it is true, goeth and cometh not; but yet I have 
learned, that it may be redeemed ; for means, I value 
that most ; and the rather, because I am purposed not 
to follow the practice of the law, (if her majesty 
command me in any particular, I shall be ready to do 
her willing service), and my reason is only, because it 
drinketh too much time, which I have dedicated to 

1 Works, vi. p. 12. 



bacon's political caeeer. 63 

better purposes. But even for that point of estate and 
means, I partly lean to Thales' opinion, 'that a philo- 
sopher may be rich if he will.' Thus your lordship 
seeth how I comfort myself ; to the increase whereof, 
I would fain please myself to believe that to be true 
which my lord treasurer writeth ; which is, that it 
is more than a philosopher can morally digest. Eut 
without any such high conceit, I esteem it like 
the pulling out of an aching tooth, which, I remem- 
ber, when I was a child, and had little philosophy, I 
was glad of it when it was done." 1 

We have called this elasticity of character, to dis- 
tinguish it from true moral greatness. The latter 
shows itself in self-possession under defeat, as well as 
in the rally of its forces. It has the acutest sensi- 
bility, but it proves its own power in repressing all 
the outbursts of tears and lamentations and petulant 
resolutions; yet this effort, mighty as it is, is not 
exhaustive ; all the prospective activities of the mind 
remain well-braced and purposeful. "Whereas elasti- 
city, by its very name, suggests the idea of depression. 
A lower order of mind is this, most certainly ; for it 
has had its moment of succumbing; the other has 
known no surrender. Upon this distinction, we can- 
not attribute moral greatness to Bacon. Both in the 
present instance, and in a later and more fearful one, 
his energies were suspended only for some seconds ; 
but those seconds were marked by the most piteous 
seK-abandonment. At first sight, it might be argued 

i Works, v. p. 223. 



64 bacon's political caeeer. 

that the humiliation of his later years so differed from 
the humiliation of the failure before us, as that the 
prostrate sufferer lost himself through remorse in the 
one case, but from little-minded shame only, in the 
other. Yet we shall do well to ponder over the 
nature of that little-minded shame. It is true, it had 
not arisen from grave errors, such as he wept over 
afterwards, such as cost him the alliance of good men 
and all peace of conscience. But it did arise from 
faults which, though remotely, were akin to them. 
Devotedly attached as he was to fame and honours, 
and even wealth, as a means of honour, he, neverthe- 
less, would have borne the loss of them with com- 
parative equanimity ; but he felt ashamed of himself; 
ashamed of the steps to which he had descended; the 
prayers, the flatteries, the circumventions he had 
employed. And this was a phase of guilt. And his 
very complainings, and his capricious threatenings of 
retirement, were, in fact, spites against himself. 

These distinctions may be thought delicate, but 
they are not fanciful. Moreover, they are of the 
highest value, for they show that real grandeur of 
character depends upon the consistency of those moral 
qualities which are ordinarily, but most unjustly, 
thought to be the inferior of their kind. 

Further, it may be remarked that, if Bacon had 
carefully cherished within his bosom the laws and 
hopes of Christianity, he would never have yielded 
himself up to such questionable eagerness, and thus 
would have been saved the anguish of his disappoint- 



EACOX's POLITICAL CAEEE£. 65 

ment ; or if they had not saved him, they would, by 
the blessing of the Holy Spirit, have soothed him into 
a submissive but active acquiescence. 

His fretfulness, however, soon passed away. The 
banks of the Cam yielded the palm to the banks of the 
Thames, for the latter was the river of the court. 
London again appeared more attractive than Paris 
and Madrid. And so, the intended recluse recalled 
his vows in the very morning of his novitiate ; the 
self- ostracizing exile complacently remained at home. 
But his purpose was no cowardly one. He anew, 
and with increased vigour, addressed himself to life's 
struggles. 

It is said, that the humility with which he bore 
that "yoke in his youth" which her majesty had 
just inflicted on him, regained him the queen's con- 
fidence, and that she made efforts to induce the new 
solicitor general to resign in his favour; but in 
vain. 

But the gift of the Earl of Essex was indeed a 
preferment. At Twickenham he "enjoyed the bless- 
ings of contemplation, in that sweet solitariness which 
collecteth the mind as shutting the eyes does the 
sight." Thither he would repair, after the glare and 
distractions of the term at "Westminster and at court ; 
and although no man less needed the facilities of 
solitude for meditation, no man ever made them 
more available. In 1596, the year after his dis- 
appointment, he circulated, in manuscript, "A Collec- 
tion of some of the Principal Eules and Maxims of 

E 



66 bacon's political cakeee. 

the Common Law, with their Latitude and Extent." 
It was not published until 1630, after his death, and 
in union with other law tracts, entitled, "The 
Elements of the Common Law of England;" but it 
is still cited as a high authority. Lord Campbell 
styles it "a specimen of the application of his 
favourite mode of reasoning to jurisprudence, by the 
enunciation of general truths or ' maxims,' estab- 
lished by an extensive collection of particulars." 1 In 
this production he may have had the subordinate 
wish to disprove the charges of his enemies, as to his 
legal inadequacy for the solicitor generalship; but 
it is evidently a first-fruits of that devotion to "law 
reform," which was one of the projects of his life. 

The next year was the most memorable, perhaps, 
in the course of Bacon's authorship. It saw his first 
definite address to the republic of literature, when 
he published "Essayes, Eeligious Meditations, Places 
of Perswasion and Disswasion, 1597.*' They imme- 
diately became "the van of English prose literature." 
They placed their author on exactly that intellectual 
eminence in Europe which he afterwards needed, in 
order to command attention to vaster and more 
original speculations. Just as Montaigne's Essays 
were of the Erench, Eacon's were the artistic type of 
the English mind ; the former, intuitive in sagacious 
thought, quick in the contrasts and comparisons of 
conventionalism, pointed in wit, and facile in expres- 
sion; the latter reflective, subjective, genial, though 

i Campbell, ii. p. 297. 



BACONS POLITICAL CABEEB. 67 

enigniatical in humour, and solemn in style. And 
Bacon's Essays obtained a reputation exactly corres- 
ponding with that of the nation of which they were the 
type. They sue for no intimacy, yet irresistibly claim 
confidence. The eye may not sparkle at their flashes. 
'but the deep-seated heart of man throbs at their 
counsel. Their language may not be rapid in tone 
and evolution, but their grave notes are attuned with 
lighter ones to the music of the whole human soul. 
They are translateable into all languages and in all 
ages and amid manners of every kind. They, in 
especial, have been said to contain "the seeds of 
thought ;" and there is no soil of humanity in which 
they will not germinate, as in their mother-earth. 

They are, moreover, dyed with the tincture of 
Christian sentiments, although untheological in their 
form and matter. Combine Seneca and Eochefou- 
cault ; refine the one of his ethical paganism, the 
other of his mere worldly prudence ; and then elevate 
them to the broad yet practical, the charitable yet 
pure generalizations of Christian morals, and you 
have the staple of Bacon's observations upon human 
character, and of his aphorisms for human conduct. 
"It is indeed/' Hallam remarks, "little worth 
while to read this or any other book for reputation's 
sake ; but very few in our language so well repay 
the pains, or afford more nourishment to the 
thoughts." 1 

It is not our purpose to give a bibliographical 

1 HaUanrs Hist, of Literature, ii. p. 513. 



68 bacon's political caeeeb. 

account of Bacon's writings, or to submit an analysis 
of their contents. "We would chiefly attend to any 
points in connection with them which serve to illus- 
trate his character. 

His fraternal affection was very strong and very 
constant. His only brother, Anthony Bacon, was a 
man distinguished for literary attainment and diplo- 
matic sagacity. He was the confidential friend and 
adviser of the Earl of Essex. Bacon thus commences 
his dedication of the Essays, &c, to him : — 

u Loving and beloved brother, 

" I do now like some that have an orchard ill- 
neighboured ; that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent 
stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print ; 
to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to 
interpretation ; to let them pass had been to adventure the 
wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnish- 
ment which it might please any that should set them forth to 
bestow upon them." 

Further, in the warmth of his fraternal love, and 
in circumstances which could allow of no affectation, 
he thus refers to his brother's physical maladies : " I 
assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities trans- 
lated upon myself, that her majesty might have the 
service of so active and able a mind ; and I might 
be, with excuse, confined to those contemplations 
and studies, for which I am the fittest." 

These extracts are well worth our notice ; for the 
records of Bacon's private life are particularly defi- 
cient. But these, together with several other letters 



EACOX's POLITICAL CAEEEE. 69 

to his brother Anthony ; the terms in which he dedi- 
cated, many years later, another edition of the Essays 
to his brother-in-law Constable ; and, above all, the 
touching request in his last will in reference to 
his mother, are proofs that neither the pursuits of 
ambition, nor the insulating speculations of phi- 
losophy, had injured the family affections of his 
heart. 

In the October of this year, he was returned to 
the new parliament, member for Ipswich. There is 
nothing of importance in his speeches during its 
sessions, except that he strove to neutralize the im- 
pression which his former amendments on the subsi- 
dies had produced upon the queen. l£e became her 
champion against the liberal party, and addressed the 
house "to make it appear by demonstration, what 
opinion so ever be pretended by others, that in point 
of payments to the crown, never subjects were par- 
takers of greater freedom and ease. Whether you 
look abroad into other countries, or look back to 
former times in this our own country, we shall find 
an exceeding difference in matter of taxes. We are 
not upon excessive and exorbitant donations, nor 
upon sumptuous and unnecessary triumphs, buildings, 
or like magnificence, but upon the preservation, pro- 
tection, and honour of the realm. I dare not scan 
her majesty's actions, which it becometh me rather 
to admire in silence. Sure I am that the treasure 
which cometh from you to her majesty, is but a 
vapour which riseth from the earth, and gathering into 



70 BACON'S POLITICAL CAKEETl. 

a cloud, stayeth not there long, but, on the same 
earth, falleth again." * 

This was, indeed, the language of a courtier ; and 
our knowledge of his recent suffering may give us a 
strong suspicion, that he employed it in order to 
retrieve himself. Nevertheless, we cannot charge 
him with political apostacy. For even his obnoxious 
speech was not against the principle or the amount 
of the subsidies, but against the proposed details of its 
collection. And we have already seen that the object 
of the " opposition," of which he was a member, was 
more to embarrass the members than the measures of 
the ministry. 

We shall conclude this chapter with three events 
in Bacon's history, two of which were matters of 
private life, whilst the other, though more public, 
was strictly personal. 

His earnest suit for the solicitor-generalship had 
not been wholly from motives of ambition. He was 
deeply in debt, and needed the emoluments of office. 
We have seen how his expectations were blasted by 
his father's sudden death ; he received only an eighth 
of the sum, the whole of which had been intended for 
himself. He had been nurtured in a court, and 
accustomed to an expenditure which, though large, 
was demanded of his rank and prospects. The 
poverty which now burst on him was comparative; 
but for him it was poverty. His profits from the bar 
were extremely small ; his rewards from the crown, 

i 1 Pari. Hist. p. 905. 



EACOX's POLITICAL CAEEEE. 71 

nothing but bare honour. His seat in parliament, and 
his costly experiments in science, drained his purse. 
And to complete his misery, his love of splendour, 
and his recklessness of even the little that he had, 
amounted to infatuation. 

* From this dilemma, he sought for escape in a 
wealthy marriage. He sought the hand of Lady 
Hatton, a young widow with a large and unrestricted 
fortune. Add to this, she was the granddaughter of 
his uncle, the lord treasurer, a still nearer relation- 
ship to whom would have been of the highest value. 
How he personally wooed her, we know not ; but we 
know that he sought and obtained the best offices of 
Lord Essex, both with herself and with her parents. 
Bacon begged his lordship's interest, trusting, he 
said, "that the beams of his lordship's pen might 
dissolve the coldness of his fortune." That earnest, 
indefatigable friend thought for him, and sued for 
him, although he himself was overwhelmed with 
the critical anxieties of his Cadiz expedition. To the 
father he writes: " To warrant my moving of you to 
incline favourably to his suit, I will only add this, 
that if she were my sister or daughter, I protest 
I would as confidently resolve to further it, as I now 
persuade you." He told her mother: " If my faith 
be anything, I protest, if I had one as near to me as 
she is to you, I had rather match her with him than 
with men of far greater titles." But it was all in 
vain. If there were any love for Lady Hatton in 
Bacon's bosom, his lot was severe, for she refused him ; 



72 bacon's political caeeer. 

and even if there were not, he had not only to return 
to his chambers in blank despair at his accumulated 
debts, but to be wild at learning that she had pre- 
ferred a rival in the person of Sir Edward Coke, his 
own vindictive and powerful competitor in the 
state. 

And his debts remained! The chances of his 
forming this alliance had hitherto quieted his credi- 
tors ; but now they clamoured, and, at length, one 
of them seized upon his person. The future great 
statesman, lord chancellor, and philosopher, became 
the inmate of a " sponging-house." 

His friends released him; but his bitter and 
degrading annoyances were not over. With his heart 
wrung with vexation, to say the least, at the rejec- 
tion of his hand; with his name the subject of the 
gibes of the spendthrift, and the condemnations of the 
prudent ; threatened with loss of caste in society and 
at court ; with reflections made all the more poignant 
by his consciousness of having the highest powers and 
attractions — he has to repair to "Westminster Hall. 
Coke is seated near him! The bitter, tyrannical, 
ungentlemanly attorney-general, who had circum- 
vented him in law and in love, watches him, meets 
his eye with a look of ungenerous triumph, scans the 
noble features which were blanched with the fear of 
a debtor's jail, and the instant he thinks him vulner- 
able upon a point of form, starts up, and thus wounds 
and worries a monarch among minds: — 

Mr. Attorney. " Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth 



BACOX S POLITICAL CAREEK. 73 

against me, pluck it out; for it will do you more hurt 
than all the teeth in your head will do you good." 

Bacon f coldly J. "Mr. Attorney, I respect you; 
I fear you not ; and the less you speak of your great- 
ness, the more I will think of it." 
' Mr. Attorney. "I think scorn to stand upon terms 
of greatness towards you, who are less than little, less 
than the least," (adding other such strange light 
terms, with that insulting which cannot be ex- 
pressed.) 

Bacon f stirred, yet self possessed J. " Mr. Attorney, 
do not depress me so far ; for I have been your better, 
and may be again, when it pleases the queen." 

" With this," says Bacon, "he spake neither I nor 
himself could tell what, as if he had been born 
attorney -general; and in the end, bade me not meddle 
with the queen's business, but with mine own ; and 
that I was unsworn." 

Bacon. " Sworn or not sworn is all one to an 
honest man; I have ever set my service first, and 
myself second ; and I wish to God that you would do 
the like." 

Mr. Attorney. " It were good to clap a capias 
utlegatum upon your back." 

Bacon. "I thank God you cannot; but you are at 
fault, and hunt upon an old scent." 1 

"He gave me," adds Bacon, "a number of dis- 
graceful words besides, which I answered with siler ce, 
and showing that I was not moved by them." 

1 Works, vi. p. 46. Campbell, p. 302. 



74 bacon's political careeb. 

At a scene so disgraceful, and in open court, we 
cannot but be indignant. Yet, in truth, we feel 
much more so with Bacon than with his rude and 
vulgar assailant. Coke could know no better. His 
asperity was that of professional insolence towards 
unprofessional learning ; it was the vaunt of the mole, 
with its microscopic eye, over the broad, sun-loving 
glance of the eagle. But Bacon did know better. 
We mean not to insinuate that his retorts misbecame 
him or his position. They were mild and dignified. 
But he knew that to continue in such an atmosphere 
of low strife, to allow the recurrence of such gross 
insults, and the renewal of such polluting competi- 
tion, was beneath himself, beneath his own sublime 
aims in science, and unnecessary for one whose 
mission was not active, but contemplative. Happily, 
no such humiliation can now await any member of 
that profession which, in its very conflicts, is the 
guardian of the law ; and if there did, there would be 
noble spirits whose special talents would, from their 
duty to their country, bind them to defy it, and to 
continue at their post; but Bacon ever felt his 
original inaptitude ; was ever longing for moral power 
to retreat ; and it would have been well for his own 
best fame, for philosophy and religion, and for his 
good conscience, if he had left Coke to strut and crow 
within his own circlet, and had soared into his native 
regions of vastness and equanimity. 

All these circumstances were, indeed, dishearten- 
ing. But there was one other, and still more painful. 



BACOx's POLITICAL C ALLELE. 75 

He liad to mourn over the estrangement of Lord 
Essex, which, though slight, though it did not 
interfere with his lordship's readiness to serve him, 
must have pained him deeply. "I was not called,' ' 
he says, "or advised with some year and a-half 
'before his lordship's going into Ireland." * "We have 
a long letter from him to the Earl, filled with the 
most faithful and affectionate counsels, when the 
relation of that nobleman to queen Elizabeth had 
become precarious. He strove to awaken his friend 
to his peril, by the following supposed soliloquy of 
the queen about her favourite : "A man of a nature 
not to be ruled, that hath the advantage of my 
affection, and knoweth it ; of an estate not grounded 
to his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a 
military dependence ! " And then he continues : 
"I demand whether there can be a more dangerous 
image than this represented to any monarch living, 
much more to a lady, and of her majesty's appre- 
hension?" 2 Then follows a series of counsels so 
wise, so prophetic as to the consequences of their 
being rejected, that we could adduce from all Bacon's 
writings, nothing more marked by his all-compre- 
hensive sagacity. If Essex had followed them, he 
would have soothed the proud self -jealousy of the 
queen; he would have silenced his enemies; he 
would have retained such happiness at court as never 
to have entertained his mad and fatal undertaking of 
the government of Ireland. Eut in the beginning 

1 Works, iii. p. 217. 2-Wot]^ v. p. 228. 



76 bacon's political caeeee. 

of this letter we find that he had already taken 
hurt by his friend's "careful and devoted counsel." 

In the midst of all these sorrows, Bacon had 
gleams of light and sunshine. Her majesty, in 
token of the renewal of her favour, visited him at 
Twickenham j and this made him sure of professional 
advancement upon the next vacancy. His practice 
at the bar increased, and his pecuniary difficulties 
lessened. He was accepted as the first of orators 
in the House of Commons; as among the very first 
of authors in Europe. Lord Campbell observes : 
" This I think may be considered the most auspicious 
period of Bacon's career." But we must change the 
scene. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BACON AND THE EAEL OF ESSEX, 

Theee is no one fact in Bacon's history which 
demands a more patient and dispassionate examina- 
tion, than that on which we have now to enter. At 
a later period, we must inquire into other grounds of 
serious allegation against him ; but grave as we shall 
find them, they are trivial in comparison with those 
which concern his conduct towards his friend, the 
Earl of Essex. TVe will, therefore, narrate the cir- 
cumstances, and then consider his defence. 

In regard to those movements of the Earl which 
ultimately led him to the scaffold, it will suffice to 
state, that he sought and obtained the lord lieute- 
nancy of Ireland, under the solemn engagement to 
take immediate and energetic measures to quell the 
alarming insurrection which the Earl of Tyrone had 
organized, and was leading; that on his arrival in 
Dublin, instead of instantly marching his troops 
against the centre of the rebels, he diverged off to 
spots of inferior importance, and thus first incurred 



78 BACON AND ESSEX. 

the queen's warm disapprobation; that, afterward, 
when he came upon the main force of the rebels, 
with his own camp weakened by sickness, desertion, 
and discontent, he entered on a truce with his 
enemy; that this, added to her irritation at the 
querulous letters which he sent home, made his 
sovereign furious, — who, whilst loading him with 
her displeasure, commanded him still to remain in 
Ireland ; that, in disobedience of her order, he sud- 
denly left his government, repaired to court, and, 
trusting to the influence of his personal appeals to 
her heart, forced himself into her presence, and 
wrung from her, in her moment of woman's weak- 
ness, a favourable reception ; that, on the recovery of 
her feelings, she ordered him to be confined to his 
chamber, to be twice examined by her council, and 
then committed him to the custody of the lord 
keeper Egerton, in whose house he was to be 
excluded from all company; that, after various 
passages of relenting kindness, her exasperation at 
the news she received from Ireland became so great, 
that she ordered him to be examined by the Privy 
Council, by whom he was condemned to lose his 
posts as a counsellor, earl marshal of England, and 
master of the ordnance ; to return to his own house, 
and to continue there a prisoner during her majesty's 
pleasure; that there, inflamed with the fever of 
anxiety and hope, he burst all bounds of moderation, 
plotted schemes for the overthrow of her majesty's 
ministers, and the seizure of her person ; and finally 



BACON AND ESSEX. 79 

that, betrayed and apprehended, he was brought to 
trial, was condemned, and executed. 

This sunrrnary, rapid as it is, is enough for our 
present purpose. We have neither to enlarge upon 
the criminality of his conduct, nor to state its pallia- 
'tions. "We have, the rather, to bear in mind that 
Bacon was bound to him by the claims of the most 
disinterested and active friendship, and to inquire 
into his behaviour towards the imprudent and then 
guilty Earl. 

There was but one of four courses open. Either 
he could promptly fly to the side of his misguided 
and rash friend, the moment he had returned from 
Ireland, and while his offences were comparatively 
venial, and could there resolve to employ all his 
energies to save him from disgrace ; and, if unsuc- 
cessful, to mourn over it in silence, even though his 
silence should cost hi m dear. 

Or, he could assume, from the beginning, a strict 
neutrality, and keep aloof both from the offender and 
the offended. 

Or, under the colour of a loyal patriotism, he 
could indignantly sever himself from all sympathy 
with the criminal, and hold all his powers at the 
command of the sovereign, in order to punish insub- 
ordination. 

Or, lastly, without prescribing to himself any one 
uniform line of action, he could follow his first 
impulses, and cherish or repress them, just as his 
own interests might dictate. 



80 BACON AND ESSEX. 

If he had taken the first, nothing more than what 
the laws of true friendship require would have been 
sacrificed; for, at the commencement, the Earl's im- 
prudence involved no dishonour ; and Bacon would 
have so added fidelity to his other glories, that the 
shame of his later life would have been deep in 
shadow. And, moreover, such was the influence of 
his sagacity and wisdom over the reckless and uncal- 
culating Earl, that there is the highest probability 
he could have restrained him from the rash move- 
ments which proved his ruin. If he had taken the 
second course, and remained strictly neutral, he 
might have been taxed with insensibility, or ingrati- 
tude, or cowardice, but not with treachery. The 
third line might have been open as a moral question. 
But he took the last. 

The materials by which we may guide our judg- 
ment, will be derived chiefly from Bacon's own 
defence of his own conduct: a defence which he 
deemed necessary, in consequence of the scorn with 
which he was treated by an indignant British public. 
In our adopting this document, every thing will be 
in his favour; yet, with all our anxiety to clear so 
great a name, we must study it with a vigilant 
impartiality, and compare its assertions with those 
testimonies from other sources which are available. 

It is addressed to the Earl of Devonshire, and com- 
mences thus : — 

* It may please your good lordship, I cannot be ignorant, 
and ought to be sensible of the wrong which I sustain in com- 



BACON AND ESSEX. 8l 

mon speech, as if I had been false or unthankful to that noble 
but unfortunate earl, the Earl of Essex : and, for satisfying the 
Tulgar sort, I do not so much regard it ; though I love a good 
name, but yet as an handmaid and attendant of honesty and 
virtue. For I am of his opinion that said pleasantly, ' That it 
was a shame to him that was a suitor to the mistress, to make 
love to the waiting-woman ; ' and therefore, to woo or court 
common fame, otherwise than it folio we th on honest courses, 
I, for my part, find not myself fit or disposed. But, on the 
other side, there is no worldly thing that concerneth myself 
which I hold more dear than the good opinion of certain 
persons ; among which there is none I would more willingly 
give satisfaction unto, than to your lordship. First, because 
you loved my Lord of Essex, and therefore will not be partial 
towards me, which is part of that I desire : next, because it 
hath ever pleased you to show yourself to me an honourable 
friend, and so, no baseness in me to seek to satisfy you : and 
lastly, because I know your lordship is excellently grounded in 
the true rules and habits of duties and moralities, which must 
be they which shall decide this matter ; wherein, my lord, my 
defence needeth to be but simply and brief; namely, that 
whatsoever I did concerning that action and proceeding, was 
done in my duty and service to the queen and the state; in 
which I would not show myself false-hearted nor faint-hearted 
for any man's sake living. For every honest man that hath his 
heart well planted, will forsake his king rather than forsake his 
God, and forsake his friend rather than forsake his king ; and yet 
will forsake any earthly commodity, yea, and his own life in some 
cases, rather than forsake his friend. I hope the world hath 
not forgotten these degrees, else the heathen saying, Amicus usque 
ad aras, [be a friend even unto martyrdom,] shall judge them." 1 

The principles which Bacon has here enunciated, 
and by which he proposes to justify his conduct to 

i Works, iii. p. 211. 
P 



82 BACON AND ESSEX. 

Lord Essex, may be open to the attack of sophistry ; 
but in a large and straightforward sense, we would 
unreservedly accept them. Indeed, the first and the 
third must instantly obtain our acquiescence. That 
our fealty to our God must supersede our fealty to 
our sovereign, no believer in a Supreme Being will 
question. Neither will any sound heart hesitate 
upon the duty of self-sacrifice in the cause of vir- 
tuous friendship. But that a man should " forsake his 
friend rather than forsake his king," is a statement 
not morally precise enough. The "king" and the 
" state " are not necessarily correlative terms. If 
they were, we should be prepared to accept Bacon's 
proposition. For we hold that our love to the 
government of our country should transcend all other 
earthly affection; so much so, that the latter should 
never, not for a moment, come into competition. 
But whereas they are not necessarily correlative; 
whereas the "king" may involve the idea of the 
personality of the sovereign, with all his individual 
views, wishes, and caprices; in this sense, we deny 
Bacon's principle. An extended argument against 
it is unnecessary ; it is based upon the assumption, 
which at least in an English bosom confutes itself, 
namely, that the personal will of the monarch is 
the sole tenure on which we hold each and any thing. 
Perhaps Bacon was sincere in this political maxim. 
Most probably he was, for ever while in office he did 
his utmost to magnify the royal prerogative. If so, 
we rejoice; for while it impugns his judgment, it 



BACON AXD ESSEX. 83 

saves Lis heart from the charge of unprincipled in- 
fidelity to his friend and benefactor. 

Having laid down the "true rules and habits of 
duties and moralities," by which he "wishes his 
conduct to be tried, he proceeds to that very view of 
the personality of the sovereign to which we have 
made exception : "As your lordship may remember, 
the queen knew her strength so well, as she looked 
her word should be a warrant." "Would that he had 
stopped here ! "Would that only his political logic had 
been at fault, and that thence, unsound though the 
premises, he had legitimately reasoned that for her 
he ought to forsake his friend ! But the most anxious 
doubts as to his singie-rm 'n dedness arise when we read 
further : " And I, for my part, though I was not so 
unseen in the world but I knew the condition was 
subject to envy and peril; yet, because I knew again 
she was constant in her favours, and made an end 
where she began ; and especially, because she upheld 
me with extraordinary access, and other demonstra- 
tions of confidence and grace, I resolved to endure it 
in expectation of better." It must require the 
blindest admiration of Bacon's character not to per- 
ceive here, that his loyalty to the personal authority 
of his sovereign was not enough to sustain him in his 
procedure against his friend; but that there were also 
the most ambitious calculations as to how it would 
affect his own advancement. 

We pass over the history which he gives us of his 
relations to Essex up to the period of his lordship's 



84 BACON AXD ESSEX. 

troubles. They have already come before us. We 
resume his defence at just that moment when his 
unhappy friend abruptly deserted his government, 
and sought, by a personal interview, to moderate the 
wrath of queen Elizabeth. Bacon affirms, and there 
is no reason to doubt him, that while his lordship was 
under restraint, he went to him. "This," he says, 
"was at Nonesuch, where, as my duty was, I came 
to his lordship, and talked with him privately about 
a quarter of an hour, and he asked mine opinion of 
the course which was taken with him ; I told him, 
■ My lord, nubecula est, cito transibit ; l it is but a mist. 
But shall I tell your lordship, it is as mists are : if it 
go upwards, it may perhaps cause a shower ; if down- 
wards, it will clear up. And, therefore, good my 
lord, carry it so, as you take away by all means all 
umbrages and distastes from the queen; and especially, 
if I were worthy to advise you, as I have been by 
yourself thought, and now your question imports the 
continuance of that opinion, observe three points: 
first, make not this cessation or peace, which is con- 
cluded with Tyrone, as a service wherein you glory, 
but as a shuffling up of a prosecution which was not 
very fortunate. Next, represent not to the queen 
any necessity of estate, whereby, as by a coercion or 
wrench, she should think herself enforced to send 
you back into Ireland, but leave it to her. Thirdly, 
seek access importune, opportune, seriously, sportingly, 
every way.' " 2 

1 It is but a small cloud, it will quickly pass away. 2 Works, vol. iii. p. 219. 



BACON AND ESSEX. 85 

It must here be noticed that, even before this 
interview, Bacon had lost not a moment before he 
wrote to Essex a letter, which breathes the warmest 
and most respectful affection, is full of encourage- 
ment, and employs many of the same expressions; 
which we have just seen he afterwards uttered in 
person. 

So far, Eacon acted as the laws of the most sincere 
friendship could desire. And it must not be forgotten 
that, at the time when the Earl undertook his dis- 
astrous expedition, he had shunned his society and 
counsel for a year and a half, and went on it in spite 
of Eacon' s most wise and most earnest remonstrances. 
True impartiality requires us to weigh all this, espe- 
cially as we may have, hereafter, unqualifiedly to 
condemn him. 

Eacon passes from the above statement to the 
rumours which soon became rife, — that, in his nume- 
rous audiences with the queen, he " was one of them 
that incensed her against Lord Essex." If these 
rumours were well-founded, he was, notwithstanding 
the Earl's rejection of his counsel, guilty of unpar- 
donable treachery. He solemnly denies it. He 
details a conversation which he had with Sir Eobert 
Cecil, in which the latter reported to him the scandal, 
avowed his own disbelief in it, told his cousin of the 
neutrality which he himself should follow, and 
astutely advised him to do the same. He avers that 
he met the charge with a contradiction which was 

1 Works, vol. v. p. 252. 



86 C1C0N AND ESSEX. 

satisfactory to the secretary. He further instances 
various conversations which he had with queen 
Elizabeth, in all of which, with the utmost adroit- 
ness, he would seem to have availed himself of all 
her peculiarities and weaknesses, in order to propitiate 
her in favour of his friend. He claims, as the result 
of his address, that the Earl, instead of being exposed 
to the mortification of a trial in the Star Chamber, 
was to be arraigned before a select number of privy 
councillors ; and also, that whilst he was attempting 
to attain it, as the least of evils, "certainly I offended 
her at that time, which was rare with me : for I call 
to mind, that both the Christmas, Lent, and Easter 
term following, though I came divers times to her 
upon law business, yet methought her face and 
manner were not so clear and open to me as it was at 
the first." 1 

Lord Campbell remarks: "We have the account 
of these dialogues only from himself after her death ; 
and it is to be regarded with great suspicion, as there 
is reason to think that she gave a somewhat different 
version of them in her life-time ; for, introducing his 
narrative, and alluding to the stories circulated 
against him, he says : ' I will not think that they 
grew any way from her majesty's own speeches, 
whose memory I will ever honour ; if they did, she is 
with God, and miserum est loedi de quibus non possis 
queri.'" 2 [It is a melancholy thing to receive injury 
from those of whom you cannot possibly complain.] 

i Works, iii. p. 223. « Campbell, ii. p. 309. 



BACOX AXD ESSEX. 87 

Surely this lacks that high-minded scrupulousness 
which, at other times, so distinguishes his lordship in 
his "Lives of the Chancellors," especially in that of 
Lord Bacon. Queen Elizabeth had as much anxiety 
to transfer the blame of the death of the Earl of 
Essex to the shoulders of others, as Eacon had to 
vindicate himself. And, therefore, the laws of 
evidence would call upon us to withhold any conclu- 
sion whatever, for we have only two contradictory 
statements equally unsupported. It may be argued 
— and this is all that can be said — that Bacon's 
evident wistfulness not to offend her majesty, for the 
sake of his own interest, may have seduced him into 
sundry acts of acquiescence in the allegations of her 
wrath against the Earl. But we answer, Bacon was 
far too keen- sighted not to see, that if he had shown 
such treachery to his friend, the eagle eye of his 
royal mistress would have instantly detected it, and 
riven him with scorn for his baseness. 

It is far more probable that he, at length, found 
that his earnestness and perseverance in the cause of 
the unhappy Earl, were of imminent peril to himself. 
The queen was resolved to break, not destroy, the 
spirit of her haughty favourite. Meanwhile, Essex, 
in defiance of Bacon's counsel, was increasingly exas- 
perating her. And, at last, terrified for the success 
of his own ambitious projects, Bacon deserted his 
friend, and after protests, which could be only politi- 
cal finesse, he allowed himself to be one of the counsel 
against him on his trial. 



88 BACON AND ESSEX. 

He says, alluding to the preliminaries for this trial: 
" It was said to me openly . . . that her majesty was 
not yet resolved whether she would have me forborn 
in the business or no. And hereupon might arise 
that other sinister and untrue speech, that I hear is 
raised of me, how I was a suitor to be used against 
my Lord of Essex, at that time : for it is very true, 
that I know well what had passed between the queen 
and me, and what occasion I had given her, both of 
distaste and distrust, in crossing her disposition, by 
standing steadfastly for my Lord of Essex; and suspect- 
ing it also to be a stratagem arising from some par- 
ticular emulation, I writ to her two or three words 
of compliment, signifying to her majesty, 'That if 
she would be pleased to spare me in my Lord of 
Essex's cause, out of the consideration she took of my 
obligations towards him, I should reckon it for one of 
her greatest favours; but otherwise desiring her 
majesty to think that I knew the degrees of duties; 
and that no particular obligation whatsoever to any 
subject could supplant or weaken that entireness of 
duty that I did owe and bear to her and her service.' 
And this was the goodly suit I made, being a 
respect no man that had his wits could have omitted; 
hut nevertheless I had a further reach in it; for I 
judged that day's work would be a full period of any 
bitterness or harshness between the queen and my 
lord ; and, therefore, if I declared myself fully accord- 
ing to her mind at that time, which could not do my 
lord any manner of prejudice, I should keep my 



BAC03- AND ESSEX. 89 

credit with her ever after, whereby to do my lord 
service." l 

Nothing but imperious truth could have made us 
record this self- condemnatory passage. Though we 
should assume that Bacon really had an eye to the 
interests of his friend, it argues the utter absence of 
all delicacy. Even his colleagues assigned him an 
inferior part in the prosecution, being sensitively 
alive "how he stood tied" to the Earl of Essex. 
Then why did he not relinquish it altogether ? If her 
majesty had spontaneously commanded him to do his 
duty, as her "counsel extraordinary," the received 
laws of the bar might be urged in his defence. But 
while, as he was informed, she hesitated, did he not 
stand aloof, and pray that an obedience so terrible 
might be spared him ? Or, why did he volunteer to 
lay before her majesty a consideration of which she 
might avail herself, and give him an appointment so 
odious? And further, why did he allow thoughts 
about his own ambition to intrude and to influence 
him, as he here, with a short-sighted ingenuous- 
ness, admits he did. We cannot refrain from saying 
that we revolt at the phrase "to do my lord service," 
as well as at the fact that he discharged his share in 
the prosecution of his friend with unusual earnestness 
and severity, because of "the superior duty," he 
says, "I did owe to the queen's fame and honour in 
a public proceeding; and partly, because of the inten- 
tion I had to uphold myself in credit and strength 

1 Works, iii. p. 225. 



90 BACON AND ESSEX. 

with the queen, the better to do my lord good offices 
afterwards." 

The two following letters will be here appropriate. 
The first is from Bacon to the Earl of Essex upon the 
liberation of the latter after his trial : the second is 
the Earl's answer. They are both important, as 
showing the relative feelings of the parties after 
one friend had been a public prosecutor against the 
other : — 

"My lord, 

" No man can expound my doings better than 
your lordship, which makes me need to say the less ; only I 
humbly pray you to believe, that I aspire to the conscience and 
commendation of bonus civis and bonus vir [a good citizen and 
a good man] ; and that though I love some things better, I 
confess, than I love your lordship, yet I love few persons better, 
both for gratitude's sake, and for your virtues, which cannot 
hurt but by accident ; of which my good affection it may please 
your lordship to assure yourself, and of all the true effect and 
offices I can yield. For, as I was ever sorry your lordship should 
fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus's fortune, so for the 
growing up of your own feathers, be they ostrich's or other 
kind, no man shall be more glad. And this is the axletree 
whereon I have turned, and shall turn. "Which having already 
signified to you by some near mean, having so fit a messenger 
for mine own letter, I thought good also to redouble by writing. 
And so I commend you to God's protection. From Gray's Inn, 
this 9th day of July, 1600/' » 

We will not dwell upon the manifest uneasiness, 
and, to a prostrate man in the Earl's condition, the 
unfeeling insinuations of this letter. The answer is 

i Works, v. p. 253. 



BA.C03T A.SD ESSEX. 91 

a sufficient comment, alike creditable to the heart 
and the manly self-repose of a wounded friend : — 

"}Ir. Bacon, 

u I can neither expound nor censure your late 
actions, being ignorant of all of them save one ; and having 
directed my sight inward only to examine myself. You do pray 
me to believe, that you only aspire to the conscience and com- 
mendation of bonus civis and bonus vir; and I do faithfully 
assure you, that while that is your ambition, though your 
course be active and mind contemplative, yet we shall both 
eonvenire in eodem tertio ; and convenire inter nosipsos, 1 Your 
profession of affection and offer of good offices are welcome to 
me ; for answer to them I will say but this ; that you have 
believed I have been kind to you, and you may believe that I 
cannot be other, either upon mine own humour or mine own 
election. I am a stranger to all poetical conceits, or else I 
should say somewhat of your poetical example. But this I 
must say, that I never flew with other wings than desire to 
merit, and confidence in my sovereign's favour ; and when one 
of these wings failed me, I would light nowhere but at my 
sovereign's feet, though she suffered me to be bruised with my 
fall. And till her majesty, that knows I was never bird of 
prey, finds it to agree with her will and service that my wings 
should be imped again, I have committed myself to the same. 
No power but my God's, and my sovereign's, can alter this 

resolution of 

u Your retired friend, 

'•Essex." 2 

^Tiat a pang must have pierced Bacon's bosom 
when he read this letter! Cold and dignified, yet 
sufficiently indicative of aggrieved feeling, it must 

1 These Latin phrases convey his lordship's assurance to Bacon, that 
they should agree in common and together. a Works, v. p. 253. 



92 BACON AND ESSEX. 

have penetrated more deeply than if it had been 
winged with reproaches. And how mournfully 
beautiful its rejoinder to the figure employed in 
Bacon's letter ! The merit of that figure is lost in 
the almost insolent flippancy which surrounds it. 
But that Bacon should write so, was to be expected : 
his conscience was ill at ease, and then unnatural 
levity was sought after as a veil and a relief. 

Shame, and we will hope some better feeling, 
recalled him to his obligations. "We have seen that 
the Earl, though deeply hurt, was still hopeful about 
his friend, and welcomed his offer of good offices. 
We have the documents, so there can be no doubt of 
Bacon's truth, when he says in his defence : "I did 
draw, with my lord's privity, and by his appoint- 
ment, two letters, the one written as from my 
brother, the other as an answer returned from my 
lord, both to be by me in a secret manner showed to 
the queen ; . . . . the scope of which was but to 
represent and picture forth unto her majesty my 
lord's mind to be such as I knew her majesty would 
fainest have." Whether or no this artifice was 
justifiable, it showed Bacon's desire to bring about a 
reconciliation. Alas ! it was when success would 
have ministered to his own interests. 

But, for whatever reasons, the queen remained 
implacable. According to Bacon's words : " She be- 
came utterly alienated from me, and for the space of, 
at last, three months, which was between Michaelmas 
and New Year's tide following, would not so much as 



BACON AND ESSEX. 93 

look on me, but turned away from me with express 
and purposelike discountenance wheresoever she saw 
me." This he attributed to the warmth and per- 
tinacity with which he had advocated his friend; 
and he made an impassioned explanation to her 
majesty, which she graciously received. "Where- 
upon," he says, "I departed, resting then determined 
to meddle no more in the matter ; as that, that I saw 
would overthrow me, and not be able to do him any 
good." 

This cold selfishness, betrayed in the words "that 
that would overthrow me," ruined Lord Essex, and 
cast an ineffaceable stain upon Bacon. It ruined 
Lord Essex ; for, from this time rendered desperate, 
and deserted by his astute and politic counsellor, he 
gave his ear to men who were fond of plots and 
machinations; listened to their tales against his 
enemies at court, and about their designs upon his 
life ; burst out into rebellion against the state, if not 
against the person of his sovereign, and was a second 
time arraigned, but upon more serious charges. "We 
say, also, that it cast an ineffaceable stain upon 
Bacon. He had anew pledged himself to the Earl. 
Perhaps common prudence would have made him 
silent on the subject before her majesty; but he 
left his Mend and benefactor without the slightest 
provocation, and when he must have known that his 
defection from his side would expose him to influ- 
ences the most fatal. 

And now the second trial, one for high treason, 



94 BACON AND ESSEX. 

was to take place. Lord Campbell, with noble and 
eloquent emotion, observes: "It might have been 
expected that now, at any rate, struck with remorse 
and overcome by tenderness, Bacon would have 
hastened to the noble prisoner's cell in the Tower to 
comfort and console him ; to assist him in preparing 
an almost hopeless defence ; to devise schemes with 
him for turning away the anger of the queen ; to 
teach him how he might best avail himself for his 
deliverance of that ring which Bacon knew had been 
intrusted to him, with the promise that it should 
bend her to mercy whenever returned to her, which 
she was anxiously looking to see till the very moment 
of his execution, and the thought of which embittered 
her own end. At all events, he might have helped 
his fated friend to meet death, and have accompanied 
him to the scaffold." l 

But Bacon kept aloof from him, as from a pesti- 
lence. Nay, he did far worse ; he became one of the 
counsel against the prisoner ; spent ten days in his 
chambers in Gray's Inn studying the law of treason, 
collating parallel cases from history, and preparing 
periods of the bitterest and most damnatory in- 
vective. 

» Who would envy him with all his knowledge and 
philosophy and fame, as he awoke to consciousness 
on the morning of the trial, the 19 th of February, 
when, amidst the cold and silence of that winter'3 
morn, he thought of the cruel engagements of the 

i Campbell, ii. p. 313. 



BACON AND ESSEX. 95 

day? Who would envy him, whose better spirit 
sympathized with the calm and innocent retreats of 
science, as he sat before his papers, listened to the 
tramp of horse and the foot -falls of passengers, 
hurrying — the one as guards, the other as spectators 
— to that condemnation of his own friend which he, 
himself, was about to secure by every energy of 
argument and eloquence ? Who would envy him 
when he threaded his way through an English 
crowd, whose indignant outbursts at his faithless 
effrontery burst upon his ear; when peers, and 
judges, and brother- counsel regarded him with 
averted looks ; and, finally, when he had to exchange 
glances with the arraigned noble, whose confidence, 
and affection, and kindness he was prepared to repay 
with hostility and insult ? He was about to draw 
from ancient history exaggerated and invidious 
parallels of the Earl's treason ; would that there had 
occurred to him some one of his own ! "Would that 
the "et tu Brute" of Caesar had then caught his ear! 

It is not our province to give the details of this 
mournful trial: only a few special facts must be 
noticed. The Earl, in the vigour of his freshest 
manhood, with a name for high chivalrous daring, 
for all manly accomplishments at the council- chamber 
and in the study, and for the noblest courtesy of 
bearing, was led to the bar by Sir Walter Ealeigh. 
Thus two knights, each meet, in the world's estimate, 
to be the brother-in-arms of a Bayard, stood close to 
each other, the one as the prisoner, the other as his 



96 BACON AND ESSEX. 

keeper. Both, though with the interval of years, had 
to suffer upon the same scaffold ; and in the condem- 
nation of both, Bacon bore a dishonourable share. 

After that two of the law officers, namely, Yel- 
verton, the queen's serjeant, and Coke, the attorney 
general, had addressed the peers, and laid the evidence 
before them, Lord Essex delivered his defence. It 
was Bacon's part to reply. Even now, we might 
have forgiven him much, if his speech had betrayed 
him into pathos and regrets ; he would have found 
the assent of numerous tears among his noble audience, 
as it saw youth and rank, and even genius, thus in 
peril before them. Indeed, we believe that if at that 
last hour Bacon, under the natural inspiration of love 
and gratitude for his friend, had risen and then sat 
down and wept, it would have gone far to save the 
prisoner ; for it would have met a response in the 
heart of queen Elizabeth. But he rose, and spoke at 
length with more than his wonted dexterity, to 
invalidate the few palliating considerations which 
were urged by the accused. He taunted him with 
his own confession; he compared him — his own 
gentle and generous friend — to Cain, the first mur- 
derer, who took up "an excuse by impudency." 
Because Lord Essex had alleged his personal danger 
as some excuse for his desperation, he drew the 
parallel of Pisistratus, who, in order to conciliate the 
citizens in his aim after supremacy, covered his body 
with wounds of his own infliction, and charged them 
upon his enemies in the state. " And now, my lord," 



BACON AND ESSEX. 97 

(he added, in conclusion,) "all you have said or can 
say in answer to these matters are but shadows, and 
therefore, methinks it were your best course to 
confess, and not to justify." 1 

But this dreadful scene of unnatural violence was 
not yet closed. The Earl, appalled by his friend's 
perfidy, exclaimed: "May it please your lordships, 
I must produce Mr. Bacon for a witness," and 
adverted to the very letter which, as we have seen, 
Bacon had prepared for him for queen Elizabeth. 
He quoted it as the outline of the defence which he 
had just delivered, adding: "It will appear what 
conceit he held of me, and now otherwise he here 
coloureth and pleadeth the contrary." 

It must have been a moment of awful retribution 
upon Bacon, a moment of soul- sickening shame 
aggravated by alarm; but he replied: "My lord, I 
spent more hours to make you a good subject than 
upon any man in the world besides ; but since you 
have stirred upon this point, my lord, I dare warrant 
you the letter will not blush ; for I did but perform 
the part of an honest man, and ever laboured to have 
done you good, if it might have been, and to no other 
end ; for what I intended for your good was wished 
from the heart, without touch of any man's honour." 

The unhappy Earl was more than justified in his 
retort upon his betrayer ; for Bacon had thus made 
himself both the argument of defence and its answer. 
And he became guilty of an unseemly altercation 

i State Trials, 1350. 
G 



98 BACON AND ESSEX. 

with, his friend across the grave which was yawning 
to receive that friend. 

We need not give the additional defence of Lord 
Essex; it was instantly followed by Bacon's insti- 
tuting a still more invidious parallel than those which 
he had employed before. He knew the vulnerable 
points of the Earl's character ; those which had made 
him numerous enemies among his peers ; those which 
had so maliciously and so often been insisted on to 
his royal mistress, until her lofty spirit could brook 
them no longer. He knew that to speak of them at 
that high tribunal; to proclaim his love of power, 
his ambition of control over his sovereign, was to 
light an inextinguishable passion in that sovereign's 
bosom ; so jealous was she of her supremacy in action, 
as well as in prerogative. And could no other illus- 
tration content him than that of the haughty and 
aspiring duke of Guise, the personal foe of queen 
Elizabeth, whose dictations to his king had so often 
aroused her indignation at himself, and contempt for 
his dependent monarch ? 

The Earl of Essex was condemned. Still there 
remained an interval before his execution in which 
Bacon might have exerted himself for his friend's 
rescue. But he did nothing. "We may well suppose 
that when the day of that trial closed, with what 
remorseful anguish he must have rushed from the 
great hall at "Westminster to conceal his guilt within 
his chambers at Gray's Inn. There may have been 
sycophants to applaud his acumen and his eloquence ; 



BACON AXD ESSEX. 99 

but, though he loved praise more than most men, how 
his soul must have shuddered at their congratulations ! 
Then why did he not move every available power in 
order to neutralize his crime ? He knew that queen 
Elizabeth was in an agony of indecision, waiting for 
some pretext on which, consistently with her dignity, 
she might pardon one whom she had so long and so 
confidingly regarded. "Why did not his creative brain 
suggest, and his powers of address use, some plan for 
favourably determining her hesitation? From his 
own defence we learn, that, between the Earl's 
arraignment and suffering, he was with the queen 
once ; and then, he observes, " though I durst not deal 
directly for my lord as things then stood, yet generally 
I did both commend her majesty's mercy, terming it 
to her as an excellent balm that did continually distil 
from her sovereign hands, and made an excellent 
odour in the senses of the people ; and not only so, 
but I took hardiness to extenuate, not the fact, for 
that I durst not, but the danger, telling her, that if 
some base or cruel-minded persons had entered into 
such an action, it might have caused much blood and 
combustion ; but it appeared well, they were such as 
knew not how to play the malefactors; and some 
other words which I now omit." Is this latter 
reasoning so consistent with his exaggerations about 
the danger at the trial, as to deserve our belief that 
he could have employed it ? And if he did, when 
was ever a sincere friendship so half-hearted and so 
calculating ? Then further: he knew that Essex pos- 



100 BACON AND ESSEX. 

sessed a ring which was the sure and certain pledge 
of the royal amnesty; why did he not take the 
measures necessary for haying it presented ? 

The truth must be told. In his interview with the 
offended sovereign, he was too much absorbed in 
steering himself safely through the storms and quick- 
sands of her passion ; and as to any intercourse with 
Lord Essex, his guilty spirit could not dare to con- 
front him, even to give him saving counsel. 

Not to dwell upon what must have been Bacon's 
emotions on the day of the Earl's death, we may 
pass onward to those which he must have expe- 
rienced some time afterwards. All his stratagems to 
obtain promotion thenceforward failed with queen 
Elizabeth. Perhaps her disgust at his double-dealing 
was the reason of her withholding favour. He had 
gained not one single step in his profession ; he had 
lost his consciousness of rectitude and the esteem 
of good men, when her majesty's own death ap- 
proached. What must have been his remorseful 
anguish as he heard that she had fallen into the 
profoundest melancholy on account of the death of 
Essex ; that she refused all food and sustenance ; 
that the once majestic woman, whose heroism was 
wont to rise with her troubles, now abandoned 
herself to grief, lying prostrate for ten days and 
nights upon the floor, refusing to be comforted, 
uttering moans instead of lofty words, and at last 
died exhausted by her woe ? 

We have thus described the whole of this melan- 



BACOX ABB ESSEX. 101 

choly fact in the life of Bacon, with no readiness of 
heart to defame his memory. We have given hnt 
the truth. And in addition to the requirement of 
history to do so, the moral lesson which it teaches 
has made us earnest. It cannot be thought that 
Bacon, from the first, resolved on his course of 
betrayal of his friend. Bather, it is to be believed 
that his first efforts to save him were sincere. 
But a stronger impulse than that of friendship was 
within him : it was that of an ambition which 
might be called vulgar; for although it affected 
high and useful offices in the commonwealth, he 
was ever preeminently alive to their "poinp and 
circumstance." And the mastery which it attained 
and exercised is an illustration of a law of the 
human passions as instructive as it is painful. It 
would seem as if each one of us had a certain 
amount of emotional energy, which varies according 
to the individual, and which, it was originally 
intended by our benign Creator, should be distributed 
among the affections of the heart. The degrees of 
that distribution were to maintain the general har- 
mony. And so, the exaggerated share of any one of 
them, must be at the expense of others. It was 
deplorably exemplified in the case before us. Moral- 
ists have often and earnestly protested against the 
evils of immoderate ambition ; but we are mistaken 
if this fact of Bacon's life does not offer a more 
serious warning, wherein an impetuous and im- 
patient desire for advancement lowered the tone of 



102 LACON AND ESSEX. 

the other feelings, and blindly bore him forward to 
the bursting of some of the finest and holiest of 
human ties. By saying this, we impugn not a spirit 
of noble and generous competition ; we only submit 
the certain moral injury which must follow when it 
enlarges into an unscrupulous purpose. And enlarge 
it will, and that insensibly, unless its growth be 
habitually brought under control by that devotion 
to the Divine glory and the good of others, which is 
required by the gospel. 



CHAPTEE Till. 

BACON OX THE ACCESSION OF JA3TES I. 

The great queen Elizabeth survived about two years 
the execution of the Earl of Essex. "We have 
already hinted, that although it is to be feared 
Eacon deserted his friend in the hope of retaining 
and increasing her favour, yet he obtained no pro- 
motion. The only special office she assigned him, 
was one which has stamped him with greater infamy 
than even the perfidy which we have had to record 
in the previous chapter. He is not the only one 
upon whom there fell the reproaches of the country, 
in consequence of the Earl's death. She, herself, 
found that her people no longer gloried in that 
clemency for which she had been so renowned. 
Moreover, the rumour reached her, that she had 
done unnatural and unnecessary violence to those 
affections of the woman, which, in this case at least, 
must have been unsullied, and which must, there- 
fore, have been the more binding. Could it have 
been indignant revenge that prompted her to com- 
mand Bacon to prepare a public paper to justify 



104 I3ACON ON THE 

the deed ? Whether or no, it involved the severest 
retribution, both at the moment and thereafter. 
He prepared the document ; and although it must 
not be forgotten that it was corrected and inter- 
polated by others of her council, yet it breathes 
an animus of the darkest virulence against Lord 
Essex — an animus which pervades the whole, but 
which would have shown itself at abrupt intervals 
only, if it had been subsequently introduced in the 
original. 

Of these last two years of the queen's life, wo 
have only to observe in regard to Bacon that, on 
the summons of a new parliament, he was again 
elected, and, in spite of the odium which was 
around his name, his great talent and eloquence 
reasserted his position. He introduced a bill con- 
cerning " Weights and Measures," which was lost, 
and the high importance of its principle was ad- 
mitted by parliament only so recently as in the reign 
of William rv. But with less wisdom he advo- 
cated " Monopolies," thereby pandering to the wishes 
of the crown, and exposing himself to the attacks 
of Sir Walter Ealeigh, for his inconsistency with 
the sentiments of his earlier and more patriotic 
speeches. 

A new era at length arrived in the accession 
of James i, and undeterred by the mortifications 
and remorse of his ambition in the former reign, 
he strove with the most eager avidity to obtain 
the early notice of the new sovereign. And as much 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 105 

of his future conduct, and much of the tenor of 
the court language which he employed, and which 
we shall have to watch as an index of his character, 
arose from that of James i, we must briefly advert 
to the mind and prejudices and habits of that 
monarch. 

Guided by the words of history, we may suppose 
how king James must have appeared to the ob- 
servant and calculating Bacon both at first, when 
he came to England, and thenceforward. Not- 
withstanding his acknowledged learning, James dis- 
played a pedantry, the ridiculousness of which no 
language could exaggerate; and we can figure to 
ourselves how the politic courtier must have dis- 
cerned this weakness, and resolved to gratify it 
to the full. The meanness of the act would be 
relieved by its piquancy. It must have been a 
scene amusing, yet most humbling to human nature, 
to have watched the contrast of two such minds — 
learning without breadth or method dictating to 
learning universal and organized; " old saws and 
modern instances" parrying with original thoughts 
and great principles, far fetched comparisons and 
close analogies. Yet it must have been most painful 
to perceive the majesty of intellect, clothed with 
the robe of a sycophant; not simply humoiuing, 
but pandering to foibles ; not content with offering 
the incense of true loyalty, but burning other per- 
fumes, even those of eloquence and wisdom. When 
king James came to England, he brought with him 



106 BACON ON THE 

notions of his royal prerogative the most extra- 
vagant; and the suitor for his favour must have 
seen the unconstitutional condition on which that 
favour could be obtained. Parasites flocked around 
the monarch, yet he was known to yield himself, 
and that exclusively, to the favouritism of but one, 
and that must have told the candidate the avenue to 
the master's confidence. 

This limited reference to the peculiarities of 
James i. must be borne in mind, whensoever we 
feel surprise at the elaborate servility, and ultra- 
monarchical doctrines, and court to royal favourites, 
which we shall soon find in the history of Bacon. 
They were the degrading stepping-stones of his am- 
bition, but he took them. 

Immediately upon the death of queen Elizabeth, 
and while king James was on his journey from 
Scotland, Bacon wrote to him an offer of his services, 
and earnestly sought an audience. Even thus early 
he used his high talents in flattering the pedantry 
of the new monarch. "We select the following 
portions of this letter as examples : — 

" It may please your most excellent majesty, 

"It is observed by some upon a place in the 
Canticles, Ego sum Jlos campi et lilium eonvallium, 1 that d, 
dispari, it is not said, Ego sum Jlos liorti et lilium montium, 
because the majesty of that person is not inclosed for a few, 

1 Song" of Solomon : "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the 
vallies," chap. iii. 1. In this allusion, Bacon is as incorrect in quoting, 
as he is guilty of bad, nay wicked taste in applying it. His half-pun, 
half-antithesis, we must leave to the judgment, we hope the condem- 



ACCESSION OF JA^IES I. 107 

nor appropriated to the great. . . . And therefore, most 
high and mighty king, my most dear and dread sovereign lord, 
since now the corner-stone is laid of the mightiest monarchy in 
Europe, and that God above who hath ever a hand in bridling 
the floods and motions both of the seas and of people's hearts, 
hath by the miraculous and universal consent, the more strange 
because it proceedeth from such diversity of causes in your 
coming in, given a sign and token of great happiness in the 
continuance of your reign ; I think there is no subject of your 
majesty's which loveth this island, and is not hollow and un- 
worthy, whose heart is not set on fire, not only to bring you 
peace-offerings to make you propitious, but to sacrifice himself a 
burnt-offering or holocaust to your majesty's service." 1 

We should call this profane adulation; but the 
style of that period, we must allow, relieves it of 
much of its grossness. Nevertheless, it betrays 
Bacon's sad impatience for preferment. But this was 
not enough. Prom among his letters we find two to 
Fowlys, who had been sent to Scotland as the agent 
of the late queen's ministers ; another to Sir Thomas 
Chalmer, the tutor of Prince Henry ; a fourth to Lord 
Kinlope, the favorite of the monarch ; a fifth to 
Dr. Morison, the king's physician; and a sixth to 
Davies, afterwards lord chief justice. These must all 
have been written within a few hours of each other, 
and all contain the most earnest entreaties that his 
services may be recommended. 

nation of our readers, viz. "lam the flower of the garden and the 
lily of the mountains." Contrast this with the former misquotation, 
"lam the flower of the field and the lily of the Tallies," and the 
purport, but we must say, the profane purport of Bacon's language 
will be obvious. A sad feature it was of those days, that words 
which are consecrated, were employed on any and on all occasions, 
i Works, v. p. 2"£ 



108 BACON ON THE 

Even these canvassings were not enough. The 
Earl of Essex, together with the Earl of Southampton, 
had been, during the life of queen Elizabeth, warm 
friends of her successor. Lord Southampton was still 
imprisoned in the Tower for his share in the con- 
spiracy with his friend. His immediate release, and 
future influence at court, were certain. In terror lest 
he should thus find a powerful enemy, he unblush- 
ingly writes as follows : — 

" It may please your lordship, 

" I would have heen very glad to have presented 
my humble service to your lordship by my attendance, if I could 
have foreseen that it should not have been unpleasing unto you. 
And therefore, because I would be sure to commit no error, I 
chose to write; assuring your lordship, how little soever it may 
seem credible to you at first, yet it is as true as a thing that God 
knoweth, that this great change hath wrought in me no other 
change towards your lordship than this, that I may safely be 
that to you now which I was truly before. And so craving no 
other pardon than for troubling you with my letter, I do not 
now begin to be, but continue to be 

" Your lordship's humble and much devoted, 

" F R - Bacon." * 

We are about to enter upon what we believe was 
the most useful and distinguished period of Bacon's 
life; one in which, almost without exception, he 
dedicated his vast legal and legislative powers to the 
public good ; in which his fidelity to his sovereign, 
and his duty to his country, were in the noblest har- 
mony; in which, amidst incessant toils in parliament, 

l Works, v. p. 281 



ACCESSION OF JA3IES I. 109 

at the bar, and directly for the king, he composed 
and published many of the greatest of his works, and 
was continuously elaborating the greatest of them all. 
While, therefore, we may feel disposed to charge his 
above-mentioned canvassings for office with undigni- 
fied hurry and obsequiousness, and to brand with 
indelicacy his endeavour to propitiate Lord South- 
ampton, lest he should prove an obstacle, we must 
regard them all as ripples upon the surface, not as 
the direction of the current of his mind. "We cannot 
but think that they ultimately wrought his ruin, but 
they were not the staple of his character. 

Whilst James was on his progress to the south, 
Bacon, with his old habit as counsel extraordinary to 
the sovereign, submitted, through the Earl of North- 
umberland, for the king's consideration, a proclama- 
tion recommending " the union of England and 
Scotland; attention to the sufferings of unhappy 
Ireland; freedom of trade, and the suppression of 
bribery and corruption; with the assurance, that 
every place and service that was fit for the honour or 
good of the commonwealth should be filled, and no 
man's virtue left idle, unemployed, or unrewarded, 
and every good ordinance and constitution for the 
amendment of the estate and times, be revived and 
put in execution." * 

This proclamation was not adopted ; it breathed 
the spirit of improvement too warmly for a monarch 
of whom Bacon pronounced, after his first access to 

1 Works, iii. p. 239. 



110 BACON ON THE 

him : " Methought his majesty rather asked counsel 
of the time past, than of the time to come." But it 
is highly valuable, as showing Bacon's desire both 
for emendation in the state in general, and for those 
great measures to which, as we shall see, he resolved 
to consecrate himself. In accompanying him through 
much of his life as a statesman, we must bear in 
mind that he was an innovator in civil as well as in 
philosophical science. But he displays his profound 
wisdom in his distinction between the processes 
requisite for each. "It is good,' 7 he says, "not to 
try experiments in states, except the necessity be 
urgent, or the utility evident ; and well to beware 
that it be the reformation that draweth on the 
change, and not desire of change that pretendeth the 
reformation; that novelty, though it be not rejected, 
yet be always suspected ; and, as the scripture saith, 
' that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and 
then look about us, and discover what is the straight 
and right way, and so to walk in it;' 1 always 
remembering that there is a difference in innovations, 
between arts and civil affairs. In civil affairs, a 
change, even for the better, is to be suspected, 
through fear of disturbance; because they depend 
upon authority, consent, reputation, and opinion, and 
not upon demonstration ; but arts and sciences should 
be like mines, resounding on all sides with new works 
and further progress." 2 

Early upon the arrival of the king in London, 

I Essay on Innovations. 2 Nov. Organum, Aph. 90. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. Ill 

Bacon had an audience, and a promise of private 
access to his majesty. He soon received knighthood ; 
but it conveyed no honour, in consequence of the 
indiscriminate and mercenary conditions upon which 
king James forced it upon so many. Bacon besought 
that it might be conferred upon him with more dis- 
tinction, and not be " merely gregarious in a troop.*' 
But he failed. He had to bend his knee, lost in a 
crowd of three hundred companions. He called it a 
" divulged and almost prostituted title of knight- 
hood/' and would have declined it altogether, but, 
he adds : " I could be content no have it, both because 
of this late disgrace [he had just been attached for 
debt], and because I have three new knights in my 
mess in Gray's Inn commons; and because I have 
found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome 
maiden, to my liking." 1 

The self-contradiction in Bacon is almost unac- 
countable ; it would be wholly so, did we not know 
how often men utter the language of momentary 
disgust, as if they were solemn purposes. Vexed by 
delayed success at court, herded with so many others 
in receiving what had become a very equivocal honour, 
dunned for debts, he writes, in the same letter, thus 
petulantly: "Eor my purpose or course, I desire to 
meddle as little as I can in the king's causes, his 
majesty now abounding in council ; and to follow my 
private thrift and practice, and to many with some 
convenient advancement. Tor as for mine ambition, 

1 Letter to Sir Robert Cecil, July 3rd. U ks, vol. vi. p. 43. 



112 BACON OX THE 

I do assure your honour, mine is quenched. In the 
queen's, my excellent mistress's time, the quorum 
was small ; her service was a kind of freehold, and it 
was a more solemn time. All those points agreed 
with my nature and judgment. !My ambition now 
I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be 
able to maintain memory and merit of the times 
succeeding." This is so true to nature that we almost 
love it, although it so incongruously associates a 
childish peevishness with his great name. 

Eut he soon recovered his energies in a nobler and 
more bracing atmosphere. On the 19th March, 
1604, anew parliament assembled, and Sir Francis 
Bacon took his seat as member for Ipswich ; he had 
been likewise chosen for St. Albans. The session 
was stormy, beyond parallel, for that period. It was 
the harbinger of the civil tempest which eventually 
uprooted the foundations of the throne: for "as there 
are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings 
of seas before a tempest, so are there in states : — 

I lie etiam caecos instare tumultus 

Saepe monet ; frandem que et operta tumescere bella." 1 

Throughout all the conflicts in the House of Com- 
mons the labours of Sir Francis were incessant. 
"He spoke in every debate; he sat upon twenty- 
nine committees, many of them appointed for the 
consideration of the important questions agitated at 

1 Essay on Sedition. Speaking of the different appearances of the 
sun, Virgil says— Georg. i. 465 : 

" The change of empire often he declares, 
Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars."— Dry den. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 113 

that eventful time. He was selected to attend the 
conferences of the privy-council ; to report the result ; 
and to prepare remonstrances and addresses ; was 
nominated as a mediator between the Commons and 
the Lords ; and chosen by the Commons to present to 
the king a petition touching purveyors." 1 

He discharged all these onerous and delicate duties 
with the highest honour to himself, the confidence of 
the parliament, and to the satisfaction of the king. 
Many of his speeches are preserved, and especially 
reveal his wonderful power and facility in adapting 
himself to his hearers and the occasion. 

He was now to receive the first mark of royal 
favour from the new monarch. Hitherto he had 
been simply retained in his office under queen 
Elizabeth as counsel extraordinary. At length, on 
the 25 th of August, he was constituted by patent 
king's counsel learned in the law, with a fee of forty 
pounds a year. The king, moreover, on the same 
day granted him, by patent under the great seal, a 
pension of sixty pounds a year "for special services 
received from his brother Anthony Bacon and him- 
self." 2 

The inexhaustible activity and resources of his 
mind now revealed themselves more than ever. 
Though worn with much physical weakness; jaded 
with the daily details of the bar; excited, often 
agitated by the passions of the senate; his few 
Bnatches of retirement spent in the preparation of its 

* Montague's Bacon, vol. xvi. p. 107. * Rymeri Fsed. torn. xvi. p. 596. 
U 



114 BACON ON THE 

reports and petitions; he now "excogitated," and, a 
few months after, published his comprehensive views 
on education, entitled, "Helps to the Intellectual 
Powers ; " his tract on " The Greatness of the King- 
dom of Britain," and (that which formed the ves- 
tibule of his great work) " Two Books of the 
Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine 
and Human." The former two are pieces com- 
paratively fugitive, notwithstanding their individual 
value. The third is immortal. In a memoir, it 
would be undesirable to offer its analysis ; we must, 
therefore, content ourselves with stating, that it 
immediately raised the reputation of its author to the 
very highest rank as a writer and a philosopher ; and 
that it was universally admitted that, since the time 
of Aristotle, no work had such a claim to profound 
and vast originality. The English language had 
never before attained so high an elevation, neither 
was it ever before so clothed with such beauties, 
which, though lavish, were so symmetrical. We 
have called it the vestibule to his great work, the 
" Instauratio." For that work it was afterwards re- 
modelled and translated into Latin, with the title 
"De Augmentis Scientiarum" [the Advancement of 
the Sciences], and, according to Bacon's own arrange- 
ment, constitutes the first volume. 1 And it will be 
an era in every man's life who enters it, even 
although he should advance no further, for it com- 
mands such prospects of that which is without the 

1 Epistola ad Fulgentium. Works, x. p. 330. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 115 

temple ; and the portico and the chamber will, of 
themselves, reveal the inspiration of the builder. 
That he should have found both the time and calm 
contemplation and energy necessary for such an effort, 
might well justify him in saying, some years after- 
wards : ""We judge that mankind may conceive some 
hopes from our example, which we offer not by way 
of ostentation, but because it may be useful. If any 
one therefore should despair, let him consider a man 
as much employed in civil affairs as any other of his 
age, a man of no great share of health, who must 
therefore have lost much time, and yet in this under- 
taking he is the first that leads the way, unassisted 
by any mortal, and steadfastly entering the true path 
that was absolutely untrod before, and submitting his 
mind to things, may somewhat have advanced the 
design." 1 In many points, many and sad ones, 
we have to regard him as a warning; but in this 
he may be an example to all of the value of industry; 
to some, of the value of the union of industry and 
genius. 

Moreover, great as were his inconsistencies, there 
was every appearance of sincerity in the prayer which 
was found among his papers, and with which he 
prosecuted all his writings : " Thou, Father, who 
gavest the visible light as the first-born of thy 
creatures, and didst pour into man the intellectual 
light as the top and consummation of thy workman- 
ship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, 

1 Nov, Orgamnn, Aph. 5. 



116 LACON ON THE 

which coining from thy goodness, returneth to thy 
glory. Thou, after thou hadst reviewed the works 
which thy hand had made, beheldest that everything 
was very good, and thou didst rest with complacency 
in them. But man, reflecting on the works which 
he had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of 
spirit, and could by no means acquiesce in them. 
"Wherefore, if we labour in thy works with the sweat 
of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy 
vision and thy sabbath. We humbly beg that this 
mind may be steadfastly in us; and that thou, by our 
hands, and also by the hands of others, on whom 
thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to con- 
vey a largess of new alms to thy family of mankind. 
These things we commend to thy everlasting love, by 
our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us. Amen." l 

It is distressingly true that his religion did not so 
far influence him as to keep him from those follies 
and graver sins which we have to enumerate; but 
such as it was, it did warm him into a sublime 
fervour, and it saved that fervour from those fancies 
and imaginations which have so often dishonoured the 
men of genius, who have mocked at piety, and whose 
pages have scattered licentiousness and laxity through 
the world. 

Among his letters at this time, we find several 
which accompanied his presentation copies of the 
" Advancement of Learning." The friends whom he 
thus honoured were, the Earl of Northampton, Sir 

* Works, ii. p. 493. 



ACCESSION OF JA1TES I. 117 

Thomas Bodley, the Earl of Salisbury, the lord 
treasurer Buckhnrst, the lord chancellor Egerton, and 
his most personal intimate, Mr. Matthew* All these 
letters deserve perusal, but the one to Sir Thomas 
Bodley, the restorer, almost founder, of the Bodleian 
library at Oxford, is the most important : — 

"Sir, 

" I think no man may more truly say with the 
Psalm, Multum incola fuit anima mea, l than myself ; for, I do 
confess, since I was of any understanding, my mind hath in 
effect been absent from that I have done; and in absence are 
many errors, which I do willingly acknowledge ; and amongst 
the rest, this great one that led the rest ; that knowing myself 
by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a 
part, I have led my life in civil causes, for which I was not very 
fit by nature, and more unfit by the preoccupation of my 
mind. Therefore calling myself home, I have now for a time 
enjoyed myself, whereof likewise I desire to make the world 
partaker. My labours, if I may so term that which was the 
comfort of my other labours, I have dedicated to the king; 
desirous, if there be any good in them, it may be as the fat of a 
sacrifice incensed to his honour : and the second copy I have 
sent unto you, not only in good affection, but in a kind of 
congruity, in regard of your great and rare desert of learning. 
For books are the shrines where the saint is, or is believed to 
be : and you having built an ark to save learning from deluge, 
deserve proprietary in any new instrument or engine whereby 
learning should be improved or advanced. 1605." 2 

There is also a long letter to Dr. Playfere, Mar- 
garet Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, " desiring 
him to translate the Advancement into Latin." The 

1 Alluding to Psalm xxxix. 12, "I am a stranger with thee and a 
sojourner." 8 Works, v. p. 287. 



118 BACON ON THE 

following extracts are eminently characteristic of the 
exuberance yet truthfulness of his imagination : — 

" If I do not much err, for any judgment that a man 
maketh of his own doings had need he spoken of with a 
si nunquam failed imago} I have this opinion, that if I had 
sought mine own commendation, it had been a much fitter course 
for me to have done, as gardeners used to do, by taking their 
seed and slips, and rearing them first into plants, and so alter- 
ing them in pots when they are in flower, and in their best 
state. But forasmuch as the end was merit of the state of 
learning, to my power, and not glory ; and because my purpose 
was rather to excite other men's wits than to magnify mine 
own, I was desirous to prevent the uncertainties of mine own 
life and times, by altering rather seeds than plants : nay, and 
further, as the proverb is, by sowing with the basket rather 
than with the hand : wherefore, since I have only taken upon 
me to ring a bell to call other wits together, which is the 
meanest office, it cannot but be consonant to my desire to have 
that bell heard as far as can be. And since they are but sparks 
which can work but upon matter prepared, I have the more 
reason to wish that those sparks may fly abroad, that they may 
the better find and light upon those minds and spirits which are 
apt to be kindled. And therefore the privateness of the 
language considered, wherein it is written, excluding so many 
readers ; as, on the other side, the obscurity of the argument 
in many parts of it excludeth many others ; I must account it 
a second birth of that work, if it might be translated into Latin, 
without manifest loss of the sense and matter." 2 

We must presume either that Dr. Playfere was 
prevented from undertaking this office, or that, if he 
fulfilled it, Bacon's daily emendations and enlarge- 

1 The corresponding English phrase is, "If I am not deceived." 
* Works, v. p. 292. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 119 

ment of the original postponed the publication of the 
Latin version. It was not until eighteen years 
afterwards that the "De Dignitate et Augmentis 
Scientiarum" appeared. The author had written it 
" in English to be translated into the Latin tongue 
by Mr. Herbert and some others, who were esteemed 
masters in the Roman eloquence " 1 

"Whilst he was thus absorbed in his contemplative 
pursuits, Sir Francis was again recalled to his public 
duties in parliament, which reassembled on the 6th 
of November, 1605, amidst the excitement of the 
discovery of the " gunpowder plot." This may be 
the time most suitable for introducing the position 
which he took in regard to the religious controversies 
and conflicts of his day. And we may further 
anticipate one of his last documents, namely, his 
Penitential Prayer, in which he appeals to the 
Omniscient : " Remember, Lord, how thy servant 
hath walked before thee : remember what I have 
first sought, and what hath been principal in my 
intentions. I have loved thy assemblies; I have 
mourned for the divisions of thy church; I have 
delighted in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This 
vine which thy right hand hath planted in this 
nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, that it might 
have the first and the latter rain ; and that it might 
stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. " 

This, of itself, shows us that his concern for our 
Protestant constitution was more than that of an 

1 Tennyson's Baconiana. Montague, note cccciii. 



120 BACON ON THE 

enlightened statesmen. As we have said already, 
the best anti-papal influences had been shed upon 
his childhood by his parents; the civil and social 
workings of Romanism, which he had observed and 
measured in France, had cherished those influences ; 
and the study of Holy Scripture, which he habitually 
cultivated, confirmed them into permanent con- 
victions. 

By this we do not pretend that he ever became a 
violent partisan against the Church of Rome, either 
in his speeches or in his writings. Neither was he, 
on the other hand, an exclusive advocate for the 
Church of England, in opposition to the Puritans, 
who, in his day, alarmed their rivals by the rank of 
many, the learning of more, and the stern perti- 
nacity of all. Indeed, in the whole range of eccle- 
siastical history we can recall no one whose mind 
looked down upon church controversies with more 
anxious concern, yet with so little sympathy. 
His was not the latitudinarianism of indifference. 
What it was will be best described in his own 
words, in which he is accounting for his writing 
on such subjects, as a layman: "It is very true 
that these ecclesiastical matters are things not pro- 
perly appertaining to my profession; which I was 
not so inconsiderate but to object to myself: but 
finding that it is many times seen that a man that 
standeth off, and somewhat removed from a plot of 
ground, doth better survey it and discover it than 
those which are upon it, I thought it not impossible, 



ACCESSION OF JAiTES I. 121 

but that I, as a looker-on, might cast mine eyes upon 
some things which the actors themselves, especially 
some being interested, some led and addicted, some 
declared and engaged, did not or would not see." 1 

Did it consist with the limits which we have 
prescribed for ourselves, we should feel we were 
performing a high duty to the Church of Christ at 
the present times, to transcribe the entire of Bacon's 
enlarged views "Of Church Controversies," and "Of 
the Pacification of the Church;" the republication of 
them would be of the most important service now, 
especially, that divisions have rearisen which threaten 
ulterior schisms. For our present purpose, however, 
the purpose of presenting the ecclesiastical condition 
of Bacon's mind, it will be better to quote one 
portion of his " Confession of Faith." 

"That there is a universal or catholic church of 
God, dispersed over the face of the earth, which is 
Christ's spouse, and Christ's body; being gathered 
of the fathers of the old world, of the church of the 
Jews, of the spirits of the faithful dissolved, and the 
spirits of the faithful militant, and of the names yet 
to be born, which are already written in the book of 
life." 2 

In thus stating his comprehensiveness of charity 
(and we must again aver that it was most remote 
from indifferentism) ; a charity which embraced 
the Eomanist on the one hand, and the Puritan 
on the other — his stand-point being that of the 

i Works, ii. p. 524. » Ibid, ii. p. 487. 



122 BACON ON TIIE 

Church of England — we are bound to add a few of 
his expressions in regard to both. 

He says of some men in his day : " They think it 
the true touchstone to try what is good and evil, by 
measuring what is more or less opposite to the insti- 
tutions of the Church of Borne, be it ceremony, be it 
policy, or government; yea, be it other institutions 
of greater weight, that is ever most perfect which is 
removed most degrees from that church ; and that is 
ever polluted and blemished, which participateth in 

any appearance with it It is very meet that 

men beware how they be abused by this opinion; 
and that they know, that it is a consideration of 
much greater wisdom and sobriety to be well advised, 
whether in general demolition of the institutions of 
the Church of Eome, there were not, as men's actions 
are imperfect, some good purged with the bad, rather 
than to purge the church, as they pretend, every day 
anew; which is the way to make a way in the 
bowels, as is already begun." 1 

There can be no danger, as far as Bacon's authority 
is concerned, in giving the above extract; for he 
speaks thus of the controversies with the Puritans : 
"Neither are they concerning the great parts of the 
worship of God, of which it is true, that ' non serva- 
tur unitas in credendo, nisi eadem adsit in colendo;' 2 
there will be kept no unity in believing, except it be 



i Works, ii. p. 511. 

2 The words which follow the Latin, are the translation, both in this 
and the other quotations in the rest of the letter. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 123 

entertained in worshipping; such as were the con- 
troversies of the east and west churches touching 
images, and such as are many of those between the 
Church of Eome and us; as about the adoration of 
the sacraments, and the like ; but we contend about 
ceremonies and things indifferent ; about the eternal 
policy and government of the church ; in which kind, 
if we would but remember that the ancient and true 
bonds of unity are one faith, one baptism, and not 
one ceremony, one policy; if we would observe the 
league amongst Christians that is framed by our 
Saviour, "he that is not against us is with us;" if 
we could but comprehend that saying, differ entice 
rituum commendant unitatem doctrines; the diversity 
of ceremonies do set forth the unity of doctrine; 
and that habet religio quce sunt ceternitatis, habet 
quae sunt temporis; religion hath parts which belong 
to eternity, and parts which pertain to time ; and 
if we did but know the virtue of silence, and 
slowness to speak, commended by St. James, our 
controversies of themselves would close up and grow 
together. 1 

The papers from which we have made the above 
extracts were not published until after Lord Bacon's 
death; but there is authentic evidence that they 
were written about the present period of our memoir. 
They will, therefore, assist us in endeavouring to 
realize his feelings when he took his seat on the 
reassembling of parliament, amidst all the stupor and 

1 Works, ii. p. 501. 



124 BACON ON THE 

commotion of the day following the memorable fifth 
of November, 1605. The throne, the royal family, 
the whole senate, had just been delivered from the 
most tragic fate; and this, ineffable as was God's 
mercy in their escape, was nothing in comparison 
with the national disasters which must, otherwise, 
have followed. And the plotters of such woe were 
avowedly acting under the impulse of religion. We 
may imagine the contemplative Bacon moving to his 
wonted seat in the House of Commons on this 
morning; threading his way through knots of 
members, some cavaliers, some puritans, catching the 
unmeasured scorn of the one, and the excited pro- 
phecies of the other; then taking his place; anon 
summoned with his colleagues to the Upper House 
to meet his sovereign, and there listening to his 
majesty as he told them all "that, though religion 
had engaged the conspirators in so criminal an 
attempt, yet ought we not to involve all the 
Eoman Catholics in the same guilt, or suppose them 
equally disposed to commit such enormous barbari- 
ties." 1 

Not even in the "Liberty of Prophesying" of 
Bishop Jeremy Taylor ; not even in those indignant 
words which Milton fulminated, do we find more 
soul-melting or commanding truths on behalf of 
man's individual liberty with his God, than in those 
of Sir Francis Bacon. 

We have no records of what he said or did upon 

1 Hume, vi. p. 33. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 125 

this occasion : 1 an occasion which, albeit its com- 
memoration has degenerated into one which provokes 
folly as well as unthinking ill-feeling, ought never 
to be forgotten by a Briton, be his creed what it 
may ; for the success of a few half-maniac conspira- 
tors might have turned the whole current of our 
history into a flood of ruin irretrievable. 

During this session, Bacon anew exhibited his 
earnestness and high talents in reintroducing his 
measures against the grievances of " wardship" and 
"tenure in chivalry.' ' But the great legislative 
movement which he strove, both by his speeches and 
his writings, to realize, was the union of England 
and Scotland. It is unnecessary to specify the 
eloquent considerations which he urged; it is more 
interesting to know that, from his firm and enlight- 
ened conviction of its importance for both countries, 
he dared to risk his influence in parliament and his 
popularity among the people. It has been malignly 
argued against him, that he did so in order the more 
securely to win the favour of king James, with whom 
this was a most cherished measure : but the answer 
is obvious and complete, that, before he had become 
aware of the designs of that monarch, he had 
placed it in the very front of the proclamation 

1 But in his charge against Talbot he observes : " Our excellent 
sovereign, king James, the sweetness and clemency of whose nature 
were enough to quench and mortify all malignity, and a king shielded 
and supported by posterity ; yet this king, in the chair of majesty, his 
vine and olive branches about him, attended by his nobles and third 
estate in parliament ; ready in the twinkling of an eye, as if it had been 
a particular doomsday, to have been brought to ashes, dispersed to the 
four winds." Works, iv. p. 422. 



126 BACON OX THE 

which, he advised him to utter on his entrance into 
England. 

Nevertheless, his ambition still exposed him to the 
truth — " hope deferred maketh the heart sick." He 
obtained no promotion. He had now reached his 
forty-seventh year. Even the lowest of the great 
law-offices had as yet eluded him. And further, he 
was every day, when at the bar, exposed to the 
bitterest insults and the systematic opposition of his 
relentless enemy, Sir Edward Coke, now attorney- 
general. The hostility of this man had been aggra- 
vated by the great fame of Sir Eraneis, both as an 
orator and an author. It at length passed all 
bounds of endurance, when Bacon, instead of meet- 
ing it by unseemly quarrels in public, wrote to Sir 
Edward the following letter : — 

Mr. Attorney, 

"I thought best, once for all, to let you know 
in plainness what I find in you, and what you shall find of me. 
You take to yourself a liberty to disgrace and disable my law, 
my experience, my discretion. What it pleaseth you, I pray, 
think of me : I am one that knows both mine own wants, and 
other men's ; and it may be, perchance, that mine mend when 
others stand at a stay. And surely I may not endure in public 
place to be wronged without repelling the same to my best 
advantage to right myself. You are great, and, therefore, have 
the more enviers, which would be glad to have you paid at 
another's cost. Since the time I missed the solicitor's place, the 
rather I think by your means, I cannot expect that you and I 
shall ever serve as attorney and solicitor together ; but either to 
serve with another upon your remove, or to step into some other 
course ; so as I am more free than ever I was from any occasion 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 127 

of unworthy conforming myself to you, more than general good 
manners, or your particular good usage shall provoke ; and if 
you had not been short-sighted in your own fortune, as I think, 
you might have had more use of me. But that tide is passed. 
I write not this to show my friends what a brave letter I have 
written to the attorney ; I have none of those humours ; but 
that I have written is to a good end, that is, to the more decent 
carriage of my master's service, and to our particular better 
understanding one of another. This letter, if it shall be 
answered by you in deed and not in word, I suppose it will not 
be the worse for us both ; else it is but a few lines lost, which 
for a much smaller matter I would have adventured. So this 
being to yourself, I for my part rest." 1 

The whole tenor of this letter is that of dignity 
and self-respect. It seeks not to propitiate the 
coarse-minded and venomous tyrant of the bar by 
any meanness of offer or solicitation. It only asks 
for a truce of hostilities, which had been waged on 
Coke's side to the utter disregard of common decency, 
and to the degradation of the majesty of the law. 
And joining this with Bacon's replies to his assailant, 
as recorded in a former chapter, we may infer the 
general amenity and placability of his disposition. 

He was soon to be rescued from such daily 
irritation. On the death of lord chief justice Gawdey, 
Sir Edward Coke was promoted to the chief justice- 
ship of the Common Pleas; and this fed to the vacancy 
of the solicitor-generalship. 

We need not give the correspondence of Sir 
Francis upon the occasion. It was certain that, 

1 Works, v. p. 297. 



128 BACON OX THE 

notwithstanding all his former mortifying disappoint- 
ments, his ambition would be again aroused. We 
have two letters to his cousin, the Earl of Salisbury, 
the prime minister, in which he betrays great anxiety 
for the appointment, in the first of which he says : "I 
would be glad now at last to be solicitor; chiefly 
because I think it would increase my practice, wherein 
God blessing me a few years, I may mend my state, 
and so after fall to my studies at ease; whereof one is 
requisite for my body, and the other serveth for my 
mind." In this he failed again. At length, however, 
Cecil, who had gained the summit, and no longer 
feared the " contemplative philosopher "as a rival, 
gave him the promise of his services, laying aside that 
jealousy which, in the last years of Elizabeth and 
the first years of James, had been an insurmountable 
obstacle to the advancement of his cousin. Every 
means was adopted, but in vain, to induce Fleming, 
his successful competitor, to exchange his office for 
that of king's Serjeant; when, whilst Bacon was 
besieging the lord chancellor Egerton, and even his 
majesty, with entreaties, the death of Sir Lawrence 
Tanfield, chief justice of the King's Bench, oppor- 
tunely relieved all parties from embarrassment. 
Fleming was immediately appointed his successor, 
and on the 25th of June, 1607, Sir Francis gained 
the object of his suit, and became solicitor-general to 
the crown. Upon this Mallet, one of his biographers, 
remarks that, as a fact not less instructive than 
humiliating, it deserves the notice of all the votaries 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 129 

of ambition, that a man so superior, and whose high 
talents were so universally acknowledged, should 
never have attained any post, however inferior, with- 
out degrading solicitations. 

He held this office for six years, uniting its arduous 
duties with those of increased practice at the bar, his 
special functions as " king's counsel," his labours in 
the senate, and, above all, his unremitting pre- 
paration of his philosophy. 

It would be only fatiguing to our readers to enter 
upon the details of his official life during this period. 
As Lord Campbell observes: "The only prosecution 
of much consequence during the six years he was 
solicitor-general, was that of Lord Sanquhar for the 
murder of the fencing-master, who had accidentally 
put out one of the northern peer's eyes, in playing at 
rapier and dagger. This he conducted with a becom- 
ing mixture of firmness and mildness. After clearly 
stating the law and the facts, he then addressed the 
prisoner: 'I will conclude towards you, my lord, 
that though your offence hath been great, yet your 
confession hath been free ; and this shows that, 
though you could not resist the tempter, yet you bear 
a Christian and generous mind, answerable to the 
noble family of which you are descended.' The 
conviction and execution of this Scotch nobleman 
have been justly considered as reflecting great credit 
on the administration of justice in the reign of 
James." 1 

1 State Trials, p. 743. 
I 



130 BACOX ON THE 

This case stands out, in its delicate humaneness, in 
high relief to Bacon's unnecessary virulence against 
Lord Essex, even supposing him to have been merely 
a prosecutor of the crown upon the latter occasion. 
It therefore the more conclusively proves to us the 
sinister influences under which he must have for- 
merly been acting. 

Mr. Tobie Matthew, son of the archbishop of 
York, was, as already stated, one of his most 
intimate and faithful friends. He had some time 
previously conformed to the Church of Eome, and 
in the midst of the public excitement which arose 
from the gunpowder treason, he had fallen under 
suspicion, and was at length imprisoned. The 
following is one of the very few allusions which 
Bacon made to that event, and to its collateral con- 
siderations : — 

"Mr. Matthew, 

" Do not think me forgetful or altered towards 
you; but if I should say I could do you any good, I should 
make my power more than it is. I do hear that which I am 
right sorry for ; that you grow more impatient and busy than at 
first ; which maketh me exceedingly fear the issue of that which 
seemeth not to stand at a stay. I myself am out of doubt that 
you have been miserably abused, when you were first seduced ; 
but that which I take in compassion others may take in 
severity. I pray God, that understandeth us all better than we 
understand one another, contain you, even as I hope he will, at 
the least within the bounds of loyalty to his majesty, and 
natural piety towards your country. And I entreat you much, 
sometimes to meditate upon the extreme effects of superstition 
in this last powder treason ; fit to be tabled and pictured in the 



ACCESSION OP JA^IES I. 131 

chambers of meditation as another hell above the ground, and 
well justifying the censure of the heathen, that superstition is 
far worse than atheism ; by how much it is less evil to have no 
opinion of God at all, than such as is impious towards his 
Divine majesty and goodness. Good Mr. Matthew, receive 
yourself back from these courses of perdition. Trilling to have 
written a great deal more, I continue, &c." l 

From this letter, it is evident that Bacon entertained. 
the most anxious fears lest the loyalty and patriotism 
of his friend should be affected by his conversion to 
Eomanism. It were as absurd as it would be false, 
to assert the actual connection of the two ; but their 
logical connection we believe to be indisputable. 
And how much he was impressed with this as a truth, 
appears from the numerous and cautious provisions 
with which he sought to surround the oaths of 
allegiance. 

About this time he circulated a memoir on " Plan- 
tations (or Colonizations) in Ireland. " This paper 
has been, we think, most erroneously attributed to 
an earlier period. That it was composed during his 
solicitor- generalship is clear, from his thus accounting 
for his writing it: "And I was the rather invited 
thus to do, by the remembrance that when the lord 
chief justice deceased, Popham, served in the place 
wherein I now serve, and afterwards in the attorney's 
place, he laboured greatly in the last project, touching 
the plantation of Munster," &c. This small tract 
teems with the most enlarged views as to the duty 
and policy of England towards her unhappy sister. 

i Works, v. p. 304. 



132 BACON ON THE 

And how his earnestness as a statesman enkindled 
his fervour as a poet, may be learned from the follow- 
ing passage, one as exquisite in its beauty as noble in 
its aspirations. He is adducing four reasons for his 
majesty's accepting his proposals for the conciliation 
and improvement of that country. 

" The first of the four, is honour ; whereof I have spoken 
enough already, were it not that the harp of Ireland puts me 
in mind of that glorious emblem or allegory, wherein the wisdom 
of antiquity did figure and shadow outworks of this nature. For 
the poets feigned that Orpheus, by the virtue and sweetness of 
his harp, did call and assemble the beasts and birds, of their 
nature wild and savage, to stand about him as in a theatre ; 
forgetting their affections of fierceness, of lust, and of prey, and 
listening to the tunes and harmonies of the harp ; and soon after 
called likewise the stones and woods to remove, and stand in 
order about him ; which fable was anciently interpreted of the 
reducing and plantation of kingdoms, when people of barbarous 
manners are brought to give over and discontinue their customs 
of revenge and blood, and of dissolute life, and of theft, and of 
rapine, and to give ear to the wisdom of laws and governments ; 
whereupon immediately followeth the calling of stones for build- 
ing and habitation ; and of trees for the seats of houses, orchards, 
and in closures, and the like. This work, therefore, of all other 
most memorable and honourable, your majesty hath now in 
hand ; especially if your majesty join the harp of David in cast- 
ing out the evil spirit of superstition, with the harp of Orpheus 
in casting out desolation and barbarism. l " 

It is not for us to utter any opinion upon these 
benevolent designs of Sir Francis Bacon for that 
land, the conciliation of which is still an enigma 

i Works, iii. p. 319. 



ACCESSION OP JAiTES I. 133 

in statesmanship. We may, however, venture to 
observe that his views, grounded as they were upon 
the principles of civilization which were practised 
by the ancient Bomans, were supported by the late 
Sir Eobert Peel. And the friends of Ireland will 
never forget, whatever may be their several judg- 
ments upon the measure, that his last proposal for 
her was the same as Bacon's. His earliest days 
as a statesman were passed in her government ; 
throughout years of anxiety he had pondered over 
steps for her well-being ; hoping to secure it, he had 
made (wisely or no, we say not) the utmost official 
sacrifices. Within the comprehension of his states- 
manship, he had to include all the dynasties of Europe ; 
but he never forgot that Ireland "is endowed with 
so many dowries of nature. Considering the fruitful - 
ness of the soil, the ports, the rivers, the fishings, 
the quarries, the woods, and other materials; and 
especially the race and generation of men, valiant, 
hard, and active, as it is not easy, no, not upon the 
continent, to find such confluence of commodities, 
if the hand of man did join with the hand of 
nature." 1 

We must close this chapter with another proof 
of the almost fabulous intellectual industry of Sir 
Francis Bacon. We have seen somewhat, but not 
all, of his vast toil in civil life during his solicitor- 
generalship. But meanwhile, he found time and 
mental energy for composing and publishing his 

1 Works, vol. iii. p. 321. 

- 



134 BACON ON THE 

"Cogitataet Visa, "and the "De SapientiaVeterum." 
The former is a second prelude only of that system 
of which he had already contributed the introduc- 
tion — "The Advancement of Learning." In the 
preface he informs his readers that, whether his 
opinions be received with welcome, or laid aside, 
his own responsibility must be discharged, and that 
he is not without hope that other minds would 
thenceafter arise who would select the best from 
among them, and perfect their development. 1 

The "De Sapientia Veterum," or "Concerning 
the Wisdom of the Ancients," is an interpretation 
of the Pagan mythology. It is more striking for 
its sagacity, and far more valuable for the profound 
views of human nature and society which are inter- 
spersed, than convincing as a commentary. Upon 
sending a copy to his confidential friend Mr. Matthew, 
he thus writes: "My great work goeth forward; 
and after my manner, I alter ever when I add. So 
that nothing is finished till all be finished. This I 
have written in the midst of a term and parliament ; 
thinking no time so possessed, but that I should 
talk of these matters with so good and dear a 
friend." 2 

About this time Sir Francis republished his 
Essays, increased to four times their original number 
and extent, but without the Meditations, and the 
Colours of Good and Mil. He had converted most 

l Works, ix. p. 359. The " Filum Labyrinthi " is an unfinished out- 
line of this work. 2 Ibid, vol. v. p. 321. 



ACCESSION OF JA1TES I. 135 

of the former into Essays, and reserved the latter to 
embody them in the De Aug mentis Scientiarum. This 
new edition he inscribed to Sir John Constable, the 
husband of his maternal aunt. He says: "!Mylast 
essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony 
Bacon, who is with Grod. Looking amongst my 
papers this vacation, I found others of the same 
nature; which, if I myself shall not suffer to be 
lost, it seemeth the world will not, by the often 
printing of the former." 1 

This affectionate reference to his deceased brother, 
coupled with his dedication of the Essays to another, 
though more distant relative, is valuable, as showing 
the family emotions to have been strong within him. 

He had originally determined to inscribe them to 
Henry, prince of Vales, a prince of whom it has 
been said: "His excellent qualities had endeared 
him to the love and expectations of all England. 
Germanicus was not more the darling of the Roman 
people." His untimely death, however, defeated 
Eacon's purpose. Eut the inscription which he had 
prepared contains the best account that can be given 
of this the most extensively read of all his writings : 
"The word [Essays] is late, but the thing is 
ancient; for Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if you 
mark them well, are but essays, that is, dispersed 
meditations, though conveyed in the form of epistles. 
These labours of mine, I know, cannot be worthy of 
your highness, for what can be worthy of you ? Eut 

i Montague's Bacon, vol. i. p. xxxiii. 



136 BACON ON THE 

my hope is, they may be as grains of salt, that will 
rather give you an appetite, than offend you with 
satiety. And, although they handle those things 
wherein both men's lives and their persons are most 
conversant, yet what I have attained I know not ; 
but I have endeavoured to make them not vulgar, 
but of a nature, whereof a man shall find much in 
experience, and little in books ; so as they are neither 
repetitions nor fancies." 1 

There is the highest probability that, during this 
period, Bacon drew up that " Confession of Faith" 
from which the theoretical character of his Christianity 
may be ascertained. It was first published in a 
quarto pamphlet of twelve pages, in 1641 ; then in 
the Remains, 1648 ; then by Eawley in the Resusci- 
tatio, 1657. Of its authenticity, therefore, there can 
be no doubt. It exists also in various manuscripts in 
the British Museum: one copy (Birch MS. 4263) 
Mr. Montague conceives to be in Bacon's own hand- 
writing. In the Remains, the confession is stated to 
have been written by him about the time when he 
was solicitor-general (a.d. 1607-12). " 2 

The length of this important document is our only 
reason for not giving it entire. "We cannot refrain, 
however, from selecting those passages which bear 
upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
faith; such, for instance, as the fall of man, the 
Divinity of Christ, the atonement, regeneration by the 
Holy Spirit, and the sufficiency of the Holy Scrip- 

l Works, v. p. 324. * Craik's Bacon, i. P. 159. 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 137 

tures. We confess that we attach high value to these 
records ; not because we need them as aids to ascer- 
tain the doctrines of divine revelation; for these , 
essentials of our belief are written in the Bible as V 
with sunbeams ; nor because we need them as proofs 
that conclusions so humbling to human pride and to 
human power, could find place and consist with the 
loftiest and the mightiest intellectual aspirations; for, 
even if no "wise men after the flesh" had received 
them, we should have ample confidence in the fact that 
" God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to 
confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak 
things of the world to confound the things which are 
mighty; and base things of the world, and things 
which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and 
things which are not, to bring to nought things that 
are: that no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 
Nevertheless, there are some men on whom such a 
form of evidence as this before us, may have weight 
sufficient — not to convince or to convert — but to arrest 
them. There are some men who shrink, as it were, 
instinctively from the following truths, simply be- 
cause they have been popularly associated with 
mental imbecility and mental credulousness. And 
further, there are others who, because some of the 
expressions of Hilton and Locke are ambiguous upon 
the cardinal doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, have, 
with unblushing unfairness, ranked Bacon with them, 
for the purpose of forming a high literary triumvirate 

i 1 Cor. i. 27—9. 



138 BACON ON THE 

to contradict it. Let us then beg all such to weigh 
the following : — 

1. " That God made all things in their first estate good, and 
removed from himself the beginning of all evil and vanity into 
the liberty of the creature, but reserved in himself the beginning 
of all restitution to the liberty of his grace ; using, nevertheless, 
and turning the falling and defection of the creature, which to 
his prescience was eternally known, to make way to his eternal 
counsel, touching a Mediator, and the work He purposed to 
accomplish in him. ,, 

" That God created man in his own image, in a reasonable 
soul, in innocency, in free-will, and in sovereignty : that he 
gave him a law and commandment, which was in his power to 
keep, but he kept it not : that man made a total defection from 
God, presuming to imagine that the commandments and prohibi- 
tions of God were not the rules of good and evil, but that good 
and evil had their own principles and beginnings, and lusted 
after the knowledge of those imagined beginnings ; to the end, 
to depend no more upon God's will revealed, but upon himself, 
and his own light, as a God ; than the which there could not be 
a sin more opposite to the whole law of God : that yet, neverthe- 
less, this great sin was not originally moved by the malice of 
man, but was insinuated by the suggestion and instigation of 
the devil, who was the first defected creature, and fell of malice, 
and not by temptation." 

2. " That God, out of His eternal and infinite goodness and 
love purposing to become a Creator, and to communicate to his 
creatures, ordained in his eternal counsel, that one person of th^ 
Godhead should be united to our nature, and to one particular 
of his creatures : that so, in the person of the Mediator, the true 
ladder might be fixed, whereby God might descend to his 
creatures, and his creatures might ascend to God .... all 
with respect to the Mediator ; which is the great mystery and 
perfect centre of all God's ways with his creatures, and unto 
which all his other works and wonders do but serve and refer. ,, 



ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 139 

3. " That Jesus, the Lord, became in the flesh a sacrificer and 
a sacrifice for sin ; a satisfaction and price to the justice of God ; > 
a meriter of glory and the kingdom ; a pattern of all righteous- 
ness ; a preacher of the word which himself was ; a finisher of 
the ceremonies ; a corner-stone to remove the separation between 
Jew and Gentile ; an intercessor for the church ; a lord of nature 
in his miracles ; a conqueror of death and the power of dark- 
ness in his resurrection ; and that he fulfilled the whole counsel 
of God, performing all his sacred offices and anointing on earth, 
accomplished the whole work of the redemption and restitution 
of man to a state superior to the angels, whereas the state of 
man by creation was inferior, and reconciled and established all 
things according to the eternal will of the Father." 

4. "That the sufferings and merits of Christ, as they are suf- 
ficient to do away the sins of the whole world, so they are only 
effectual to those which are regenerate by the Holy Ghost, who ', 
breatheth where he will of free grace ; which grace, as a seed 
incorruptible, quickeneth the spirit of man, and conceiveth him 
anew a son of God, and a member of Christ : so that Christ 
having man's flesh, and man having Christ's spirit, there is an 
open passage and mutual imputation, whereby sin and wrath 
was conveyed to Christ from man, and merit and life is conveyed 
to man from Christ." 

"That the work of the Spirit, though it be not tied to any 
means in heaven or earth, yet it is ordinarily dispensed by the 
preaching of the word ; the administration of the sacraments ; 
the covenants of the fathers upon the children ; prayer ; 
reading ; the censures of the church ; the society of the godly ; 
the cross and afflictions ; his judgments upon others ; miracles ; 
the contemplation of his creatures ; all which, though some be 
more principal, God useth as the means of vocation and conver- . 
sion of his elect ; not derogating from his power to call imme- 
diately by his grace, and at all hours and moments of the day, 
that is, of man's life, according to his good pleasure." 

5. "That the word of God, whereby his will is revealed, 



140 BACON ON THE 

continued in revelation and tradition until Moses ; and that the 
Scriptures were from Moses' time to the times of the apostles 
and evangelists, in whose age, after the coming of the Holy 
Ghost, the teacher of all truth, the book of the Scriptures was 
shut and closed, so as not to receive any new addition ; and that 
the church hath no power over the Scriptures to teach or com- 
mand anything contrary to the written word ; but is as the ark, 
wherein the tables of the first testament were kept and preserved : 
that is to say, the church hath only the custody and delivery 
over of the Scriptures committed unto the same, together with 
the interpretation of them, but such only as is conceived from 
themselves." l 

We admit that the above is but a selection, but 
it is a fair and an unprejudiced one. Each and all of 
these quotations are in perfect accordance with the 
other beliefs that have not been mentioned, solely 
from want of space in a memoir. And we are free to 
say that they are, for the most part, echoes of the 
primal truths of the gospel. We insist upon man's 
utter defection from his Maker; upon the utter 
inability of man to return back and to be accepted in 
his allegiance to that Maker, without a Mediator; 
upon the Divinity of that Mediator ; upon the sacri- 
ficial nature of his sufferings, and the substitutionary 
nature of his merits; upon the imputation of man's 
sin to him, and of his righteousness to man ; upon 
the work of the Holy Ghost as indispensable for 
quickening within the heart true repentance as the 
antecedent, and faith and prayer as consequents; 
upon the sufficiency and finality of Holy Scripture, 

i Works, ii. p. 481—8. 



ACCESSION OF JA3IES I. 141 

in inculcating that repentance, that prayer, and that 
faith. 

We must repeat that, in thus adducing Bacon's 
creed, we do so, not with any idea that his seal and 
superscription could authenticate our belief; nay, 
we do adduce it with the distressing certainty before 
us, that his theory and his practice were at sad 
variance ; but as our more immediate object in this 
part of our memoir is to ascertain what were his 
intellectual convictions about religion, we submit the 
facts from which our readers may come to a con- 
clusion. 

Should any one charge moral weakness upon the 
theory because of the moral weakness of Bacon's 
practice, we ask — What theory is bound to commit 
itself, for a test, to its influence upon one in- 
dividual, or upon individuals ? The gospel, however, 
while it can point to individuals innumerable as 
indicating its sanctifying power, is able also to 
appeal to masses and communities with even a more 
enlarged confidence. 

Mr. Craik has written upon this subject with dis- 
crimination and elegant propriety: "Of Bacon's 
firm belief, not only in the general truth of Chris- 
tianity, but in all its most mysterious doctrines as 
commonly received, no doubt can be entertained 
by any mind that has come without prejudice to 
the perusal of his writings. He has indeed been 
charged in modern times, by some controversialists of 
the ultra-Pioman party, with employing so many 



142 BACON ON THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. 

professions of faith and piety merely to mask his real 
convictions from the vulgar eye ; while he has at the 
same time, it is pretended, in other passages either 
allowed the truth to escape him inadvertently, or 
purposely taken care to make himself sufficiently 
intelligible to the more discerning reader. But this 
is the mere virulence and lunacy of party hatred. 
The whole strain of what Bacon has written, it may 
be safely affirmed, without the exception of a single 
sentence, testifies to his mind being made up in 
favour of the truth of revelation. And that not from 
mere education, or use and wont, but from reflection 
and examination for himself. He was evidently a 
great reader of theological works; he displays a 
familiar acquaintance with the learning both of 
ecclesiastical history and of polemics, as well as with 
the Scriptures ; and, at the same time, all his exposi- 
tions and arguments have the unmistakeable air of 
having mingled with, and taken their colour from, his 
own mind." 1 

1 Craik's Bacon, i. p. 164. 



CHAPTEK IX. 

SIK EEAXCT8 BACOX ATTOEXEY-GEXEBAL. 

Bacox was now on the eve of promotion. We have 
heretofore remarked it as a painful fact, that, in spite 
of his vast and universally acknowledged talents, 
he obtained no honours but at the expense of the 
most servile solicitations. This want of success 
must, we repeat again, be chiefly attributed to the 
jealous and active discountenance with which Lord 
Burleigh and Sir Edward Cecil treated him. The 
former had been dead for some years; the son, at 
length, followed the father, and the obstacle was 
removed. Bacon became more impatient for ad- 
vancement than even he had been before ; and 
although the attorney-generalship was not vacant, he 
besought its reversion in the following letter to 
his majesty. "We give it entire, for it discloses a 
degree of self-ignorance which, especially as seen in 
a man of knowledge so manifold, is painfully instruc- 
tive. 



144 BACON ATTOENEY-GEKEEAL. 

" It may please your majesty, 

" Your great and princely favours towards me in 
advancing me to place; and that which is to me of no less 
comfort, your majesty's benign and gracious acceptation, from 
time to time, of my poor services, much above the merit and 
value of them ; hath almost brought me to an opinion that I 
may sooner, perchance, be wanting to myself in not asking, 
than find your majesty's goodness wanting to me in any my 
reasonable and modest desires. And therefore perceiving how 
at this time preferments of law fly about mine ears, to some 
above me, and to some below me ; I did conceive your majesty 
may think it rather a kind of dulness, or want of faith, than 
modesty, if I should not come with my pitcher to Jacob's well, 
as others do. Wherein I shall propound to your majesty that 
which tendeth not so much to the raising of my fortune as to 
the settling of my mind; being sometimes assailed with this 
cogitation, that by reason of my slowness to see and apprehend 
sudden occasions, keeping in one plain course of painful service, 
I may, in fine dierum [at the end of my days], be in danger to 
be neglected and forgotten ; and if that should be, then were it 
much better for me, now while I stand in your majesty's good 
opinion, though unworthy, and have some little reputation in 
the world, to give over the course I am in, and to make proof to 
do you some honour by my pen, either by writing some faithful 
narrative of your happy, though not untraduced times ; or by 
recompiling your laws, which I perceive your majesty laboureth 
with and hath in your head, as Jupiter had Pallas, or some 
other the like work, for without some endeavour to do you 
honour I would not live ; than to spend my wits and time in 
this laborious place wherein I now serve, if it shall be deprived 
of those outward ornaments which it was wont to have in 
respect of an assured succession to some place of more dignity 
and rest, which seemeth now to be an hope altogether casual, if 
not wholly intercepted. Wherefore, not to hold your majesty 
long, my humble suit to your majesty is that, than the which I 



BACON ATTOEXEY-GEXERAL. 145 

cannot well go lower ; which is, that I may obtain your royal 
promise to succeed, if I live, into the attorney's place, whenso- 
ever it shall be void ; it being but the natural and immediate 
step and rise which the place I now hold hath ever, in sort, 
made claim to, and almost never failed of. In this suit I make 
no friends but to your majesty, rely upon no other motive but 
your grace, nor any other assurance but your word ; whereof I 
had good experience, when I came to the solicitor's place, that it 
was like to the two great lights, which in their motions are 
never retrograde, So with my best prayers for your majesty's 
happiness, I rest. " 1 . . . . 

"What were the immediate motives for this extra- 
ordinary letter, Ave know not. From the expression, 
"at this time preferments of law fly about mine 
ears, to some above me, and to some below me," it 
may be assumed that he had been very irregularly 
passed over in the distribution of the prizes of the 
law. So far his self-advocacy would be natural ; but 
if ever a man betrayed an unacquaintedness with his 
own heart and character, it was Bacon, when he 
suspected himself of " slowness to see and apprehend 
sudden occasions." And as if to present it in a light 
which approached the ludicrous, he, very shortly 
after, wrote a second letter to the king, one in which 
he showed himself indelicately quick to see and 
apprehend a most sudden occasion ; for Mr. Attorney 
fell ill, and his majesty was again besieged : — 

"It may please your most excellent majesty, 

" I do understand by some of my good friends, to 
my great comfort, that your majesty hath in mind your majesty's 

1 Works, v. p. 322. 
K 



146 BACON ATTORNEY-GENEKAL. 

royal promise, which to me is anchor a spei [anchor of hope], 
touching the attorney's place. I hope Mr. Attorney shall do well . 
I thank God I wish no man's death, nor much mine own life, 
more than to do your majesty service. For I account my life the 
accident, and my duty the substance. But this I will he hold 
to say : if it please God that I ever serve your majesty in the 
attorney's place, I have known an attorney Coke, and an 
attorney Hobart, both worthy men, and far above myself; 
but if I should not find a middle way between their two dis- 
positions and carriages, I should not satisfy myself. But these 
things are far or near, as it shall please God." l 

We have said, that this letter betrays extraordi- 
nary self-ignorance. It would be incredible, were 
we not aware that self-knowledge is a science apart 
from all the others. In Bacon's classification of the 
objects of human knowledge he has, with the widest 
comprehension, embraced those which are moral, 
as well as those which are physical, and has 
traced the mutual affinities of the two; thus 
proving that they reciprocate their lights upon each 
other. Whence it follows, that the true cultivation 
of either department will illustrate the other. But 
self- acquaintance stands alone. It may exist in the 
midst of utter ignorance of every other science. It 
may be the only one absent of the whole circle of 
human investigation. For conscience is its singular 
instrument, and may, or may not, be in exercise, 
although every other activity be at work. And what 
makes the case before us the more impressive is, that 
no man ever threaded through the mazes of the soul 

1 Works, v. p. 323. 



BACON ATTOEKEY-GEXEEAL. 147 

with greater facility than did Bacon — keen- sighted 
as to all its labyrinths, until he came upon the 
domain of his own heart. And his wanderings 
there cost him more than all his sublime and trustful 
expatiations in other regions could redeem. Dare 
we hope that when he felt the bitterness of his 
error he learned to pray : " Search me, God, and 
know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; 
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead 
me in the way everlasting ? " 

The attorney-general recovered, and Bacon was 
again in a fever of anxiety. But on the death of 
chief-justice Fleming, by a series of the most dex- 
terous manoeuvres, he induced his majesty to transfer 
Sir Edward Coke from the Common Pleas to the 
King's Bench, and to confer the post thus vacated 
upon the attorney-general. He then gained his own 
suit for himself. 

His gratification was twofold; for he not only 
obtained his promotion, but injured and humbled his 
fast enemy Coke. We dare not conceal the latter 
fact. The ingenuity of the arguments with which 
he urged the king, was too subtle to have been guile- 
less. And Sir Edward Coke saw through his wiles, 
and was mortified at their success; for soon after, 
on meeting Bacon, he said to him: "]\Ir. Attorney, 
this is all your doing : it is you that have made this 
stir." Mr. Attorney answered : " Ah, my lord, your 
lordship all this while hath grown in breadth ; you 
must needs now grow in height, qt else you would be 



148 BACON ATTOKNEY-GENEKAL. 

a monster.' ' To understand all this, it may be neces- 
sary to observe, that what Coke gained in position by 
this arrangement, he more than lost in emoluments. 

For some time previous, Bacon had volunteered the 
most patriotic but unpalatable counsel to the king. 
He perceived the wide spirit of discontent which 
the illegal exactions of the crown had spread through- 
out the country, and he longed to save the popularity 
of his sovereign ; and, at the same time, by constitu- 
tional measures to relieve his treasury from its 
difficulties. He performed an ungracious but noble 
task, when he wrote to his majesty the following : — 

" My . . • prayer is, that your majesty, in respect 

of the hasty freeing of your state, would not descend to any 
means, or degree of means, which carrieth not a symmetry with 
your majesty and greatness. He is gone, from whom those 
courses did wholly flow. 1 So have your wants and necessities in 
particular, as it were, hanged up in two tablets before the eyes 
of your Lords and Commons, to be talked of for four months toge- 
ther ; to have all your courses to help yourself in revenue and 
profit put into printed books, which were wont to be held arcana 
imperii [government-secrets] ; to have such worms of aldermen 
to lend for ten in the hundred upon good assurance, and with 
such * * *, as if it should save the bark of your fortune ; to 
contract still where might be had the readiest payment, and 
not the best bargain; to stir a number of projects for your profit, 
and then to blast them, and leave your majesty nothing but the 
scandal of them; to pretend an even carriage between your 
majesty's rights and the ease of the people, and to satisfy neither. 
These courses, and others the like, I hope are gone with the de- 
viser of them ; which have turned your majesty to inestimable 
prejudice." 2 

1 The Earl of Salisbury. 2 Works, vi. p. 54. 



BACON ATTORNEY- GEXEEAL. 149 

Again : — 

"The great matter, and most instant for the present, is 
the consideration of a parliament, for two effects ; the one for 
the supply of your estate ; the other for the better knitting 
of the hearts of your subjects unto your majesty, according 
to your infinite merit ; for both which parliaments have been, 
and are, the ancient and honourable remedy.' ' * 

There may have been a spirit of vindictiyeness in 
these allusions to Lord Salisbury, from whom he had 
suffered much unfriendliness ; but no one will deny 
Bacon's courage and constitutional principles in this 
advice. 

He had scarcely taken the oaths as attorney- 
general when this advice was followed, and a new 
parliament was called. He was one of the elected; 
but at that period there was no precedent of an attor- 
ney-general having been chosen for a seat in the 
House of Commons. Mr. T. Duncombe raised the 
question of his eligibility. He was answered, that 
Sir Henry Hobart had been allowed to sit while 
attorney-general. It was rejoined, and accepted by 
the house, that this case did not apply ; as he was a 
member when he was made attorney-general, and 
therefore could not be unseated. 

Bacon's position was critical ; for if he had been 
refused his seat, he must have lost much of that 
influence which made him so valuable in his office. 
But the debate led the house to distinguish him with 
an unknown mark of favour and confidence. This 

1 Works, vi. p. 53. 



150 BACON ATTOKNEY-GENERAL. 

arose from no feeling of complacency towards the 
crown, for the parliament was irritated, and disposed 
to be intractable. Their high value of his past 
services, and their wish to retain his talents, beguiled 
them into what was an irregularity at that day ; and 
it was resolved, " that Mr. Attorney- General Bacon 
remain in the house for this parliament, but never 
any attorney-general to serve in the lower house in 
future." 

Thus, with the full confidence of his sovereign and 
the affections of his country, he took his seat. 

In this parliament, which was very abruptly dis- 
solved, in consequence of its opposition to the king's 
measures to obtain supplies, Sir Francis Bacon spoke 
on one occasion only. The lower house was in the 
utmost excitement, from the suspicion that certain 
members were in concert with his majesty with the 
purpose to override it. It was then that the new 
attorney-general, full of hope in his influence with 
the Commons, tried to assuage the storm. His speech 1 
is marked with all the features of practised oratory. 
He conciliates the audience to himself; identifies 
himself with them in their indignation ; supposing 
their suspicion to be just, aims to make them sceptical 
as to its possibility — the bare idea of it being so 
infatuate ; and as he closes, thus guards himself 
against their diffidence in his sincerity : " Thus have 
I told you my opinion. I know it had been more 
safe and politic to have been silent ; but it is perhaps 

1 Works, iii. p. 395. 



BACOX ATTORNEY- GEXEBAL. 151 

more honest and loving to speak. The old verse is 
Nam nulli tacuisse nocet, nocet esse hcutum ; l but, by 
your leave, David saith, Silui a honis, et dolor mens 
renovatus est. 2 When a man speaketh, he may be 
wounded by others ; but if he hold his peace from 
good things, he wounds himself. So I have done my 
part, and leave it to you to do that which you shall 
judge to be the best." 

Nevertheless, he was not successful ; and his must 
have been a distressing interview with the king, when 
he had to repair to "Whitehall, and announce that his 
own project of a parliament had been worse than 
useless. The monarch's pecuniary perplexities were 
aggravated by the mortification of defeat. The 
attorney-general's capability to help him was most 
seriously at stake. It was at this crisis Bacon's con- 
stitutional principles failed him, and at the cost of 
special pleading with his conscience, he cast about 
him for any and every means wherewith to extricate 
his master. 

The violent pertinacity of the Commons against 
the demands of their sovereign aroused a loyal indig- 
nation within many. "It stirred up (thus Bacon 
speaks in his charge against Mr. Oliver St. John) 
and awaked in divers of his majesty's worthy servants 
and subjects, of the clergy, the nobility, the court, 
and others here near at hand, an affection loving and 
cheerful, to present the king, some with plate, some 

l Silence does harm to no one ; it is speech that injures. 
2 " I held my peace even from good ; and my sorrow was stirred." 



152 BACON ATTOEKEY-GENEEAL. 

with money, as free-will offerings, a thing that God 
Almighty loves, a cheerful giver : what an evil eye 
doth, I know not." It is curious to observe the logic 
with which he defends this interference with the 
prerogative of the Commons : " My lords, let me 
speak it plainly to you : God forbid anybody should 
be so wretched as to think that the obligation of love 
and duty, from the subject to the king, should be 
joint and not several. No, my lords, it is both. The 
subject petitioneth to the king in parliament. He 
petitioneth likewise out of parliament. The king, on 
the other side, gives graces to the subject in parlia- 
ment: he gives them likewise, and poureth them 
upon his people, out of parliament ; and so no doubt 
the subject may give to the king in parliament, and 
out of parliament. It is true the parliament is 
intercursus magnus, the great intercourse and main 
current of graces and donatives from the king to the 
people, from the people to the king : but parliaments 
are held but at certain times ; whereas the passages 
are always open for particulars ; even as you see 
great rivers have their tides, but particular springs 
and fountains run continually." 1 

This was in the teeth of his recent private state- 
ment to the monarch, that parliament was "the 
ancient and honourable remedy." This was to set 
at nought all that legislative power of the Commons 
over a domain which their forefathers had acquired at 
the expense of so many struggles and such bloodshed ; 

l Works, iv. p. 430. 



BACON ATTORNEY- GENERAL. 153 

for it recognised not so much the right of the sub- 
ject to make free-will offerings to his sovereign, as 
the right of the latter to act upon his own individual 
judgment, and to strive to contravene the voice of 
the nation. It was the first fatal step that Bacon 
took, whereby he insulated one of the three estates, 
which seduced him into the idea of the king's irre- 
sponsibility to the laws ; which brought him to lend 
a hand to the wanton monopolies of the favourite ; 
which forfeited the affections of his country both for 
his master and himself; and at last, in his hour 
of peril, left him only an enervated sceptre for his 
protection. 

Although the consequences of this principle of the 
king's irresponsibility were ruinous, this application 
of it, in so far as it advocated free-will offerings 
only, might have been comparatively venial. But 
it naturally introduced a measure most flagrantly 
illegal. Bacon gave his counsel for the raising of 
"benevolences." The spontaneous offering of the 
subject was insufficient, and a general contribution 
was required, which, though it bore a more kindly 
title, was, in fact, .a tax without the option of the 
payer. As he states in his history of king Henry 
vn : " This tax, called a benevolence, was devised 
by Edward rv, for which he sustained much envy. 
It was abolished by Eichard in. by act of parliament, 
to ingratiate himself with the people; and it was 
now [in a national emergency in the reign of 
Henry vn] revived by the king, but with consent of 



154 BACON ATTOENEY-GENEEAL. 

parliament; for so it was not in the time of king 
Edward rv." 1 Now, however, no such consent was 
even asked. The machinery of a despot was set to 
work, and the sheriffs of the counties were commanded 
to make a compulsory solicitation. It soon brought 
its evils. 

The most violent excitement burst forth immedi- 
ately upon the proclamation of the " benevolences," 
a feeling which, if king James and Charles had 
not been infatuated, would have been a beacon of 
safety. It was nothing in its favour, that several 
members of the parliament had been committed for 
having spoken freely of the measures of the 
monarch. Men felt it to be the insult of hypo- 
crisy, that that should be called a free gift, which 
was to be surrendered against their wills ; enforced, 
as it was, by an ordinance, that they who declined 
to give their money, should give in their names. 
Most were frightened into acquiescence; but some 
bolder spirits, the van of the army of which Hamp- 
den was the calm and conscientious leader, resolutely 
refused. They argued that it was against law, for 
it had been prohibited by divers acts of parliament, 
a prohibition sanctioned by a civil curse ; against 
eeason, for it brought the individual subject in 
conflict with the wisdom of " the king assembled 
in parliament, who had then denied any such aid;" 
against eeligion, for it invited the people to sustain 
the sovereign in his violation of that coronation oath 

i Works, v. p. 81. 



BACOX ATTOENEY- GENERAL. 155 

which pledged him to maintain the laws, the liberties, 
and customs of the realm. 

Of these latter, Mr. Oliver St. John, of Marl- 
borough in Wiltshire, became the most obnoxious 
to the government, and Bacon, as attorney-general, 
conducted a prosecution against him for a libel. 
The speech which he delivered on this occasion was 
like all his other speeches, sagacious and eloquent. 
Assuming that the sovereign deserved it, its eulogy 
of his disposition and government is worthy of all 
praise. But we are concerned with his argument 
against Mr. St. John only. He strove to meet the 
complaints of the malcontent with a flat denial. 
He affirmed: " There was no proportion or rate set 
down, not so much as by way of a wish; there 
was no menace of any that should deny ; no reproof 
of any that did deny ; no certifying of the names 
of any that had denied. Indeed, if men could not 
content themselves to deny, but that they must 
censure and inveigh ; nor to accuse themselves, 
but they must accuse the state; that is another 
case. But I say, for denying, no man was appre- 
hended, no, nor noted. So that I verily think, that 
there is none so subtle a disputer in the controversy 
of lilerum arlitrium [free-will], that can with all his 
distinctions fasten or carp upon the act, but that 
there was free-will in it." 1 

This answer would have completely vindicated the 
justice of the term " benevolences," and though it 

1 Works, vol. iv. p. 432. 



156 BACON ATTORNEY-GENEKAL. 

could not establish their legality, 1 it might have 
palliated the crime of the government, had the 
absence of threats meant anything but duplicity. 
But Bacon knew that the monarch on whom he 
had uttered such panegyrics for his constitutional 
conduct, had told the Commons that he " com- 
manded" as an "absolute" king; that he had 
thrown several members of the Commons into 
prison because they had withstood his wishes ; and 
what private civilian could have been absurd enough 
to expect impunity, simply because the sovereign 
had been silent on the subject ? Bacon knew the 
spirit of his master. He needed not his intimacy 
with king James in order to be aware of his despotic 
claims upon the property of his subjects. Even 
Hume, the earnest advocate of the Stuarts, tells us 
how universally it was understood: "When Waller 
was young, he had the curiosity to go to court, and 
he stood in the circle and saw James dine ; where, 
among other company, there sat at table two bishops, 
Heile and Andrews. The king proposed aloud the 
question, ' Whether he might not take his subjects* 
money when he needed it, without all this formality 
of parliament?' Neile replied, 'God forbid you 
should not, for you are the breath of our nostrils.' 
Andrews declined answering, and said he was not 
skilled in parliamentary cases ; but upon the king's 
urging him, and saying he would admit of no evasion, 

1 Lord Campbell remarks : "There could not be a doubt that raising 
"benevolences" was, in substance, levying an aid without authority of 
parliament." Lives, iii. p. 343. 



BACON ATTOKXEY-GESEBAL. 157 

the bishop replied pleasantly, 'Why then, I think 
your majesty may lawfully take my brother Heile's 
money, for he offers it.' " 1 

There can be but little question that Bacon was 
betrayed into a surrender of this palladium of English 
liberty, from his eager desire still further to ingratiate 
himself with king James. In his importunities for 
preferment he had pledged himself to rescue the 
crown from its money difficulties. The House of 
Commons, over which he thought his influence was 
irresistible, had disappointed him ; and, whether 
consciously or no, he acquiesced in, and advocated a 
measure which, if it had been admitted, would have 
bound every tongue, desecrated the privacy of every 
hearth-stone, and sacrificed the personal liberty of 
every Briton. 

We must adduce some other proofs of his desire to 
replenish the exchequer, an exchequer which had 
been exhausted by the sovereign's reckless largesses 
to favourites : — 

" Every man makes me believe that I was never one hour 
out of credit with the lower house : my desire is to know, whether 
your majesty will give me leave to meditate and propound unto 
you some preparative remembrances touching the future parlia- 
ment.' ' 2 

"I have not been unprofitable in helping to discover and 
examine, within these few days, a late patent, by surreption 
obtained from your majesty, of the greatest forest in England, 
worth £30,000, under colour of a defective title for a matter of 
£400. The person must be named, because the patent must be 

1 Hume, vi. p. 66. 2 Works, vi. p. 53. 



158 BACON ATTOKNEY-GENEEAL. 



i 



questioned. It is a great person, my lord of Shrewsbury; or 
rather, as I think, a greater than he, which is my lady of 
Shrewsbury." l 

"I do now only send your majesty these papers inclosed, 
because I do greatly desire so far forth to preserve my credit 
with you, as thus, that whereas lately, perhaps out of too much 
desire, which induceth too much belief, I was bold to say, that 
I thought it as easy for your majesty to come out of want as to 
go forth out of your gallery ; your majesty would not take me 
for a dreamer or a projector; I send your majesty, therefore, 
some grounds of my hopes/' 2 

We give these extracts, not so much for the purpose 
of exposing the pliability with which Bacon lent 
himself to the most ex-official acts in order to please 
king James, as to show the dilemma in which he 
had placed himself; and thence to account for the 
gross inconsistency — nay, sycophancy — of which we 
have recently given proof. 

Although it is so threadbare a quotation, we cannot 

withhold it : — 

" Facilis descensus Averni 
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis : 
Sed revocare gradum. superasque evadere ad auras, 
Hoc opus, hie labor est." 3 

"We have now to proceed to a still more painful 
dereliction of duty: it trenched upon both his 
humanity and his law. 

There lived in Somersetshire an aged clergyman, 

l Works, v. p. 347. 2 r^id, p. 360. 

3 " The gates of hell are open night and day ; 
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way : 
But, to return and view the cheerful skies, 
In this the task and mighty labour lies."— J>ryden. 



BACON ATTOBKEY-GENEEAL. 159 

of the name of Peacham, whose earnest sympathies 
with his defrauded or imprisoned countrymen became 
known. On a sudden his study was invaded by 
government officials, and a sermon — never preached ? 
never intended to be preached — was seized upon. 
It was found to contain sentences which, no one can 
deny, were treasonable to the most aggravated extent. 
These sentences adverted to the sale of the crown 
lands, the deceit of the king's officers, the greatness 
of the king's gifts, his keeping divided courts. Some 
of them were full of impassioned fervour, dwelling on 
the possibility of the king's sudden death, or within 
eight days, as Ananias or JSabal ; of an insurrection 
of the people against the king for taxes and oppres- 
sions; of bloodshed for the recovery of the crown- 
lands, and the destruction of the heir- apparent (this 
is the heir, let us kill him) ; of a massacre of the 
king's officers upon duty. Waiving all considerations 
as to the mode in which this sermon was obtained, 
and the intention with which it was prepared, we 
must admit that it deserved a severe impeachment 
for several of the above articles. Bacon conducted 
that impeachment ; but before the trial he instituted 
a series of questionings, in order to ascertain if the 
prisoner knew of a conspiracy. "We blush to have to 
add, that he who was so great in his superiority 
above ancient precedents ; he who so well knew and 
so profoundly advocated the principles of moral 
investigation; he who was so distinguished for 
amenity, allowed himself to become a prime mover 



160 BACON ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

in the following : " Upon these interrogatories 
Peacham was examined before torture, in torture, 
between torture, and after torture ; notwithstanding 
nothing could be drawn from him, he still persisting 
in his obstinate and insensible denials and former 
answers." 1 Bacon was present whilst this hoary- 
headed clergyman, nearly seventy years of age, was 
rent upon the rack. In some former age this might 
not have been wondered at ; it is true that, even in 
the time of queen Elizabeth, this atrocious system of 
inquiry had been resorted to; Bacon himself had had 
to employ his wit in order to save Haywarde from 
its horrors: "Nay, madam," he said, "he is a 
doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style." 2 
But he knew that it was a crime against the English 
constitution. So well established was this, that only 
thirteen years afterward, and without the interven- 
tion of any statute, when Charles i. wished to inflict 
it upon the murderer of Buckingham, "the judges 
declared that though that practice had formerly been 
very usual, it was altogether illegal." 3 And even if 
it had been otherwise, unusual as it was ; contrary 
as it was to all the habits of the country ; dispensable 
as it was ; why did not Bacon's humanity utter a 
firm protest ? Why was there so terrible a contra- 
diction between his scorn for the intellectual thumb- 
screws of the past, and his tolerance of physical 
barbarity? Montesquieu could say of the torture, 
though he lived in a land where it was in fashion: 

» Works, v. p. 337. 2 Hume, v. p. 403. 3 ibid, vi. p. 230. 



BACON ATTOEXEY-GENEBAL. 161 

"Nous voyons aujourdhui une nation tres-bien 
policee la rejeter sans inconvenient. Elle n'est done 
pas necessaire par sa nature. Tant d'habiles gens et 
tant de beaux genies ont ecrit contre cette pratique, 
que je n'ose parler apres eux. J'allais dire qu'elle 
pourrait convenir dans les gouvernemens despotiques, 
oti tout ce qui inspire la crainte, entre plus dans les 
ressorts du gouvernement : j'allais dire que les 

esclaves chez les Grecs et chez les Eomains 

Mais fentends la voix de la nature qui crie contre 
moi." 1 

The fact is, Bacon would have lost ground in king 
James's favour, if he had opposed his truculent and 
despotic spirit. Alas ! that he could write as 
follows : — 

"It may please your excellent majesty, 

11 It grieveth me exceedingly, that your majesty 
should be so much troubled with this matter of Peacham, whose 
raging devil seemeth to be turned into a dumb devil. But al- 
though we are driven to make our way through questions which 
I wish were otherwise, yet I hope well the end will be good. 
But then every man must put his helping hand; for else I must 
say to your majesty in this and the like cases, as St. Paul said 
to the centurion when some of the mariners had an eye to the 
cock-boat, ' Except these stay in the ship ye cannot be safe.' I 

1 Montesquieu, lib. vi. chap, xvii : "In our otto day we see an 
admirably governed nation reject it, and -without inconvenience. It is 
not, then, naturally necessary. So many skilful men, so many men of 
fine genius, have written in protest against this practice, that I dare not 
speak after them. I was going to say, that it may suit despotic govern- 
ments, where everything that inspires terror more especially enters 
into the springs of government : I was going to say that the slaves 

among the Greeks and among the Romans But I hear the 

voice of nature cry out against me." 



162 BACON ATTORNEY-GENEEAL. 

find in my lords great and worthy care of the business ; and 
for my part, I hold my opinion, and am strengthened in 
it by some records that I have found. God preserve your 
majesty ! " 1 

Does not this letter betray that Eacon felt a per- 
sonal revulsion at the infliction of torture, of which 
process he says, " I wish it were otherwise ? " Does 
not this expression, together with that in which he 
craved " a helping hand," suggest that he was 
acting under a higher authority, which, meanwhile, 
kept itself in secret ? Does not his allusion to the 
necessity of the more open cooperation of that higher 
authority, convey his fears that his own conduct was 
so perilous as to want protection ? When he refers to 
" the lords," the judges, may we not suspect that he 
has been aiming to prejudice their opinions ? And is 
not his eager research of the records a symptom of 
uncertainty as to the lawfulness of his proceedings 
with the prisoner ? proceedings, from the monstrous 
cruelty of which his uncertainty had not made him 
hesitate ? 

The above letter was written on the twenty-first 
of January. The poor, dislocated, but stout-hearted 
old man would commit no one. The bishop of Eath 
and "Wells, his own diocesan, had, in vain, employed 
all his ecclesiastical influence upon the moaning 
sufferer. Again Eacon writes to his majesty : — 

" I hold it fit that myself and my fellows go to the Tower, 
and so I purpose to examine him upon these points, and some 

1 Works, v. p. 338. 



EAC0N ATTOPcXEY-GEXERAL. 163 

others ; at the least, that the world may take notice that the 
business is followed as heretofore, and that the stay of the 
trial is, upon further discovery, according to that we give out. 

" I think also it were not amiss to make a false fire, as if 
all things were ready for his going down to his trial, and that 
he were upon the very point of being carried down, to see what 
that will work with him, 

"Lastly, I do think it most necessary, and a point prin- 
cipally to be regarded, that because we live in an age wherein 
no counsel is kept, and that it is true there is some bruit 
abroad, that the judges of the King's Bench do doubt of the 
case, that it should not be treason ; that it be given out con- 
stantly, and yet as it were a secret, and so a fame to slide, that 
the doubt was only upon the publication, in that it was never 
published, for that (if your majesty marketh it) taketh away, 
or at least qualifies, the danger of the example, for that will be 
no man's case." . . . . l 

We cannot admit the surmise of Lord Campbell, 
that Bacon's proposal of a " false fire " was that of 
another mode of physical torture. It seems plain to 
us that he intended a fictitious flight. But the 
entire of these extracts affiicts us deeply. It so 
evidently reveals a wish to coin evidence by every 
species of compulsion ; and the last paragraph shows 
us a sad tissue of chicanery and artifice, in order to 
efface the impression which had been produced by the 
discountenance of the judges, sycophantic though 
they then generally were. 

Moreover, he plied every art by which to obtain 
the cooperation of those judges. He thus writes to 
the king : — 

1 Works, v. p. 354. 



164 BACON ATTOBXEY- GENERAL. 

"For the course your majesty directeth and commandeth 
for the feeling of the judges of the King's Bench, their several 
opinions, by distributing ourselves and enjoining secresy ; we 
did first find an encounter in the opinion of my lord Coke, who 
seemeth to affirm that such particular, and, as he called it, 
auricular taking of opinions, was not according to the custom of 
this realm ; and seemed to divine that his brethren would never 
do it. But when I replied that it was our duty to pursue his 
majesty's directions, and it were not amiss for his lordship to 
leave his brethren to their own answers ; it was so concluded. 

This done, I took my fellows aside, and advised that 

they should presently speak with the three judges, before I 
could speak with my lord Coke, for doubt of infusion : and that 
they should not in any case make any doubt to the judges, as 
if they mistrusted they would not deliver any opinion apart, but 
speak resolutely to them, and only make their coming to be to 
know what time they would appoint to be attended with the 
papers." . . . . ' 

"Was there ever greater legal knavery in order to 
secure a point ? Be it recorded, to the high honour 
of some of the judges who sat upon Peacham's trial, 
that they demurred to the verdict of treason; and 
thus saved the lacerated old clergyman from being 
executed, although he was condemned. He defended 
himself "very simply, though obstinately and dog- 
gedly enough." He died about seven months after, 
in the jail at Taunton. 

We must conclude this portion of Bacon's attorney- 
generalship with one more trial, in which he appeared 
to great advantage. That trial arose from a duel 
between two gentlemen of the names of Priest and 

1 Works, v. p. 339. 



BACON ATTOEXEY-GEXEEAX. 165 

'Wright. The entire of Bacon's speech upon this 
occasion is a courageous protest against duelling; 
and he argues that it is a custom which no govern- 
ment can tolerate, but at the expense of its own 
reputation for the due administration of justice; 
which no man who is loyal ought ever to sanction, 
since it virtually charges the crown with an inability 
to redress; above all, which no man who admits 
the obligations and responsibilities of religion ought 
ever to observe, for its motives are inevitably anti- 
christian, and its consequences infinitely perilous. 

We will quote but one passage from this speech, 
and that chiefly because it bears most upon those 
who, even in our own day, are especially open to the 
temptation it would obviate : — 

" It is a miserable effect, when young men full of towardness 
and hope, such as the poets call aurora filii, sons of the morn- 
ing, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends 
consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain 
manner ; but much more it is to be deplored when so much 
noble and genteel blood should be spilt upon such follies, as, if 
it were adventured in the field in the service of the king and 
realm, were able to make the fortune of a day, and to change 
the fortune of a kingdom. So, as your Lordship sees, what a 
desperate evil this is ; it troubleth peace ; it disfurnisheth war ; 
it bringeth calamity upon private men ; peril upon the state, 
and contempt upon the law." 1 

i Works, iv. p. 401. 



CHAPTER X. 

BACON AND THE EAEL OF SOMEESET. 

Hitheeto we have not spoken of king James's passion 
for favourites. It is now time, however, to advert to 
it, and to some of its details, especially as it began at 
this period to affect the movements and fortune of 
Sir Francis. 

It was one, perhaps the worst, of his majesty's 
characteristics, that he yielded himself exclusively, 
for the time being, to the governance of some young 
man, who, however deficient in the influences of intel- 
lect or rank, possessed personal accomplishments. 
Even during his residence in Scotland he had 
betrayed this weakness towards the person of Edward 
Bruce, afterwards the lord of Kinlop. But it was 
not until the year 1611, that he abandoned himself 
to one sole favourite, Bobert Carr. We should content 
ourselves with merely naming this wretched minion, 
were it not that he must soon come before us in an 
important portion of Bacon's attorney-generalship. 
At the age of twenty, he arrived at the English court 



BACON AND SO]VrEESET. 167 

from Scotland, of which he was a native. By the 
intrigues of Lord Hay, who saw the fitness of his 
person for captivating the affections of king James, 
he was soon brought beneath the eye of the monarch, 
when an accident at tilting, by which he broke his 
leg in the king's presence, made him an object of 
dangerous sympathy. The sovereign paid him frequent 
visits during his sickness; and the youth's beauty, 
arch simplicity, and tender years made a conquest. 
He was singularly uneducated ; but this gave zest to 
the partiality, for the royal pedant instantly resolved 
on the experiment of training him himself. He 
taught him the first rudiments of Latin, interspersed 
his lessons with instructions upon affairs of state, 
knighted him, then created him Yiscount Eochester, 
then gave him the garter, made him one of the privy 
council, raised him to the earldom of Somerset, com- 
mitted to him the supreme direction of his personal 
affairs, and, notwithstanding his distressed treasury, 
lavished upon him enormous wealth. Happily for 
England, her history presents no more flagrant case 
of the weaknesses of the crown. 

For many a day Carr bore these accumulated 
honours with meekness, and, under the wise and 
astute guidance of his friend, Sir Thomas Overbury, 
behaved with prudence and discretion. At length the 
toils of the Countess of Essex so ensnared him, 
that to gratify her hate for Sir Thomas Overbury, 
who had remonstrated against her influence and 
her designs, he lent himself to her revenge, and his 



168 BACON AND SOMEESET. 

friend was first imprisoned and then poisoned in tho 
Tower. 

The favourite's heart was not steeled against 
remorse. His good looks, his once seductive plea- 
santry, his easy activity forsook him, and with them 
the ardent affection of king James. 

It was while he was thus waning in the heart of 
the monarch that his successor, George Villiers, rose. 
He was his junior in years, his equal in form and 
beauty, his superior in talent and accomplishment. 
The transfer of the royal affections was as complete 
as it was sudden. And from the first moment until 
king James's death, Villiers retained his ascendancy, 
nay more, exerted it, up to the moment of his own 
assassination, over the unfortunate king Charles. He 
rose, in rapid succession, to all the honours of the 
peerage, first, as Viscount Villiers, then earl, then 
marquis, and finally, Duke of Buckingham. He 
was made knight of the garter, master of the horse, 
chief justice in eyre, warden of the cinque ports, 
master of the King's Bench office, steward of "West- 
minster, constable of Windsor, and lord high admiral 
of England. The king took no measures of state, 
preferred to no office, civil or ecclesiastical, made no 
family arrangements, without his privity and sanc- 
tion, often solely at his wish. The whole policy of 
the country, both foreign and domestic, was at his 
bidding. And provided there were funds for the 
lavish expenditure of the crown, it mattered not 
what were the measures of extortion, or what share 



BACON A3D SOMEKSET. 169 

the royal favourite monopolized. !N*o one could, 
under any circumstances, justify a sovereign in thus 
delegating an authority which he held only in trust 
for his kingdom; but, in justice to the name of Buck- 
ingham, it must be said, that he deserved such 
confidence far more than Somerset. His ability for 
government was far superior; and although his 
name is infamous for infractions of the rights and 
liberties of the subject, for which his avarice for 
himself and his family was the prime motive; 
although his unrighteous rule incurred the contempt 
of foreign nations, and blasted the spirit of loyalty at 
home, yet he stands unimpeached for such personal 
criminality as that of his predecessor. But we have 
said enough : and for the purposes of this memoir, 
we have only to bear in mind, that he was the 
sovereign de facto, and that, in reality, he was the 
last appeal of the ambitious. 

It is a redeeming fact in the character of Bacon 
that he never sought advancement through the 
influence of Somerset. It is true that he allied 
himself to Buckingham the instant he saw his 
triumph over king James's heart ; but the beginning 
of that friendship, which continued almost uninter- 
rupted to the last, was of the highest credit to both 
the favourite and the aspiring statesman. Yilliers 
was wise enough to feel, and ingenuous enough to 
acknowledge, his own utter inexperience. He there- 
fore took Sir Francis as his counsellor, and obtained 
an elaborate paper of advice which, if it had been 



170 BACON AND SOMERSET. 

observed, would have made him a blessing to his 
country, would have saved himself from execration 
and his monitor from ruin. The document remains 
to us ; no ruler should be without it. It would be 
easy to give an analysis of it, but a few extracts may 
be better. 

" It hath pleased the king to cast an extraordinary eye of 
favour upon you ; and you express yourself very desirous to win 
upon the judgment of your master, and not upon his affections 
only. I do very much commend your nohle ambition herein ; 
for favour so bottomed is like to be lasting ; whereas, if it be 
built but upon the sandy foundation of personal respects only, it 

cannot be long-lived 

"You are as a new-risen star, and the eyes of all men are 
upon you ; let not your own negligence make you fall like a 
meteor. Remember well the great trust you have undertaken ; 
you are as a continual sentinel, always to stand upon your 
watch to give him [the king] true intelligence. If you flatter 
him, you betray him ; if you conceal the truth of those things 
from him which concern his justice or his honour, although not 
the safety of his person, you are as dangerous a traitor to his 
state, as he that riseth in arms against him. A false friend is 
more dangerous than an open enemy ; kings are styled gods 
upon earth, not absolute, but Dixi, dii estis ; and the next 
words are, sed moriemini sicat homines ; they shall die like men, 
and then all their thoughts perish. They cannot possibly see 
all things with their own eyes, nor hear all things with their 
own ears; they must commit many great trusts to their 
ministers. Kings must be answerable to God Almighty, to 
whom they are but vassals, for their actions, and for their 
negligent omissions; but the ministers to kings, whose eyes, 
ears, and hands they are, must be answerable to God and man 
for the breach of their duties, in violation of their trusts, 
whereby they betray them 



BACON AND SOMERSET. 171 

11 In respect of the suitors which shall attend you, there is 
nothing will hring you more honour and more ease, than to do 
them what right in justice you may, and with as much speed as 
you may : for, believe it, sir, next to the obtaining of the suit, 
a speedy and gentle denial, when the case will not bear it, is 
the most acceptable to suitors ; they will gain by their dispatch ; 
whereas, else they shall spend their time and money in attending; 
and you will gain, in the ease you will find in being rid of their 
importunity. But if they obtain what they reasonably desired, 
they will be doubly bound to you for your favour ; bis dot qui 
cito dat [he gives twice who gives quickly] ; it multiplies the 
courtesy to do it with good words and speedily 

"1. In the first place, be you yourself rightly persuaded and 
settled in the true Protestant religion, professed by the Church 
of England ; which doubtless is as sound and orthodox thereof, 
as any Christian church in the world 

"Take heed, I beseech you, that you be not an instrument to 
countenance the Roman Catholics. I cannot flatter, the world 
believes that some near in blood to you are too much of that 
persuasion ; you must use them with fit respects, according to 
the bonds of nature ; but you are of kin, and so a friend to their 
persons, not to their errors 

"You will be often solicited, and perhaps importuned to 
prefer scholars to church livings : you may further your friends 
in that way, cceteris paribus ; otherwise, remember, I pray, that 
these are not places merely of favour ; the charge of souls lies 
upon them ; the greatest account whereof will be required at 
their own hands ; but they will share deeply in their faults who 
are the instruments of their preferment 

" Order and decent ceremonies in the church are not only 
comely but commendable ; but there must be great care not to 
introduce innovations, they will quickly prove scandalous ; men 
are naturally over-prone to suspicion; the true Protestant 
religion is seated in the golden mean ; the enemies unto her are 
the extremes on either hand 



172 BACON AND SOMERSET. 

"2. As far as it may lie in you, let no arbitrary power be 
intruded : the people of this kingdom love the laws thereof, and 
nothing will oblige them more, than the confidence of the free 
enjoying of them ; what the nobles upon an occasion once said 
in parliament, Nolumus leges Anglice mutare [we do not wish to 
change the laws of England], is imprinted in the hearts of all 
the people 

' ' By no means be persuaded to interpose yourself, either by 
word or letter, in any cause depending, or like to be depending 
in any court of justice, nor suffer any other great man to do it 
when you can hinder it, and by all means dissuade the king 
himself from it, upon the importunity of any for themselves or 
their friends ; if it should so prevail, it perverts justice ; but if 
the judge be so just, and of such courage, as he ought to be, as 
not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of 
suspicion behind it; judges must be as chaste as Caesar's wife, 
neither to be, nor to be suspected to be, unjust ; and, sir, the 
honour of the judges in their judicature is the king's honour, 
whose person they represent 

" I have but one thing more to mind you of, which nearly 
concerns yourself; you serve a great and gracious master, and 
there is a most hopeful young prince, whom you must not 
desert ; it behoves you to carry yourself wisely and evenly 
between them both : adore not so the rising son, that you forget 
the father, who raised you to this height ; nor be you so obse- 
quious to the father, that you give just cause to the son to 
suspect that you neglect him : but carry yourself with that 
judgment as, if it be possible, may please and content them 
both ; which truly, I believe, will be no hard matter for you to 
do : so may you live long beloved of both." x 

In addition to the piety, the patriotism, and the 
legal equity of these counsels, we cannot overlook 
the fact, that, in the neglect of them in particular, 

l Works, iii. p. 429, &c. 



BACON AND SOJIEBSET. 173 

most of the errors of Buckingham originated ; from 
the neglect of some of them, especially of that 
concerning the independence and purity of the 
judicial bench, arose the future ruin of Lord Bacon. 
In his writings he adverts, with singular frequency, 
to his own fitness for " contemplation," rather than 
for " active" life; and it was his sorrow to feel the 
effects of divorcing theory from practice. 

It was soon after the formation of this friendship, 
that Bacon's official duties called him to the prose- 
cution of the former favourite for murder. "We 
have already adverted to the crime in which the 
Earl of Somerset and his Countess were implicated ; 
but some further particulars must be mentioned, 
in order to account for the proceedings of Sir 
Francis. 

As to the crime itself, and the manner in which 
these guilty parties became accused, it will be enough 
to say, that upon the trial of Weston, the more 
immediate poisoner of Sir Thomas Overbury, sundry 
suspicious circumstances came to light against the 
Earl and his Countess. These were aggravated 
through the injudicious activity of friends in their 
attempts to falsify them. The king was greatly 
agitated, and reasonably, both at the position of 
one who had so deeply interested his affections, and 
obtained his unreserved confidence, and also at the 
jealousy with which his subjects would now scan 
his administration of justice. The public voice 
demanded impeachment, and obtained it. The 



174 BACON AND SOMERSET. 

Countess confessed her crime, but the Earl provoked 
his trial, and was found guilty by his peers. They 
were condemned to death, but the king commuted 
their sentence into imprisonment in the Tower. 

History records but few more appalling instances 
of the self-retribution of evil. It tells nothing of 
the years of shame and remorse which this miserable 
pair passed in their dark and solitary confinement : 
the dungeons only could present the contrast to their 
former hours, when the one, peerless in her beauty, 
and commanding in her disposition and resources, 
was the idol of the admiration of the court ; and the 
other, with boundless influence over the heart of 
his sovereign, and flushed with wealth and honours, 
joyously ruled the nation. But history does tell 
us of still bitterer moments than these cells had 
witnessed. Some seven years expired, and they 
regained their liberty; but the love which had 
maddened them into crime was gone ; in their stead 
there came the most deadly hatred, and ten wretched 
years were passed in the same house, the whole 
world deserting them, and they deserting and 
cursing one another. Their own wickedness chas- 
tised them. 

It would be superfluous for us to enter with any 
minuteness into the trial, in which Sir Erancis Bacon, 
as attorney-general, bore so prominent a part. The 
point to which, in fidelity to truth, we must refer 
is, the manner in which he directed the management 
of the accused Earl. The king was suffering extreme 



BACON AND SOMERSET. 175 

uneasiness, and whatever were the particulars, it 
arose, there can be no doubt, from the fear lest 
Somerset, in the rage of desperation, should betray 
the confidence with which his majesty had honoured 
him. Witness the paper which Bacon wrote : — 

"a f articular, remembrance for his majesty. 

a It were good, that after he is come into the hall, so that 
lie perceives he must go to trial, and shall be retired into the 
place appointed till the court call for him, then the lieutenant 
should tell him roundly, that if in his speeches he shall tax the 
king, the justice of England is, that he shall be taken away, 
and the evidence shall go on without him; and then air 
the people will cry, away with him ; and then it shall not be in 
the king's will to save his life, the people will be so set on fire." l 

But to anticipate this contingency, the king 
anxiously suggested that, before the trial, hopes of 
escape should be held out to Somerset, provided his 
conduct was discreet. To this Eacon replies in a 
letter to Sir George Yilliers : — 

" That same little charm, which may be secretly infused 
into Somerset's ear some few hours before his trial, was ex- 
cellently well thought of by his majesty; and I do approve it 
both for matter and time ; only, if it seem good to his majesty, 
I would wish it a little enlarged ; for if it be no more than to 
spare his blood, he hath a kind of proud humour which may 
overwork the medicine. Therefore I could wish it were made 
a little stronger, by giving him some hopes that his majesty 
will be good to his lady and child ; and that time, when justice 
and his majesty's honour is once saved and satisfied, may produce 
further fruit of his majesty's compassion." 2 

1 Works, v. p. 96. « Ibid. v. p. 398. 



176 BACON AND SOMERSET. 

It would really seem that such an extent of impu- 
nity appeared too great even to the king, intensely 
anxious as he was to secure Somerset's silence. 
Bacon, however, felt convinced that only such hopes 
could obtain it ; and would merely modify his pro- 
posal with a contrivance by which James might first 
encourage and then deceive them. Thus he again 
wrote to Sir George Villiers : — 

" I am far enough from opinion, that the redintegration or 
resuscitation of Somerset's fortune can ever stand with his 
majesty's honour and safety; and therein I think I expressed 
myself fully to his majesty in one of my former letters; and I 
know well, any expectation or thought abroad will do much 
hurt. But yet the glimmering of that which the king hath 
done to others, by way of talk to him, cannot hurt, as I conceive ; 
but I would not have that part of the message as from the king, 
but added by the messenger as from himself. This I remit to 
his majesty's princely judgment." l 

This surely was the proposal of a most cruel arti- 
fice — a master-piece of deception. 

Provision, however, was to be made against all 
possible contingencies ; and Bacon, with a providence 
worthy of a better cause, submitted to the attention 
of his majesty four of them. But first he says : 
"I cannot forget what the poet Martial saith: '0 
quantum est subitis casibus ingenium ! ' signifying, 
that accident is many times more subtle than fore- 
sight, and overreacheth expectation ; and besides, I 
know very well the meanness of my own judgment, 
in comprehending or casting what may follow." He 

l Works, v. p. 460. 



BACON AND SOMERSET. 177 

assumes, either that the criminals will make " such a 
submission or deprecation, as they prostrate them- 
selves and all that they have at his majesty's feet, 
imploring his mercy; or, which he thinks most 
likely, that the Countess will confess, and that Somer- 
set himself will plead not guilty, and be found guilty; 
or, that he will stand mute and will not plead ; or, 
that the peers will acquit him, and find him not 
guilty. For each of these possibilities, Bacon pro- 
vides advice to his sovereign. "We need notice the 
second and last only. For the second, namely, that 
Somerset might plead not guilty, and be found 
guilty, he promises : "It shall be my care so tG 
moderate the manner of charging him, as it might 
make him not odious beyond the extent of mercy. " 
Eor the last, namely, that he might be acquitted by his 
peers, he prepares a more elaborate precaution. Such 
was the king's dread of Somerset's divulging the 
secrets to which he bad been privy, that under no 
circumstances was he to be allowed to go at large. 
Bacon thus anticipates and meets the danger : — 

" In this case, the lord steward must be provided what to 
do. For as it hath been never seen, as I conceive it, that there 
should be any rejecting of the verdict, or any respiting of the 
judgment of the acquittal; so, on the other side, this case 
requireth that because there be many high and heinous offences, 
though not capital, for which he may be questioned in the star- 
chamber, or otherwise, there be some touch of that in general 
at the conclusion by my lord steward of England ; and that 
therefore he be remanded to the Tower as close prisoner." x 

1 Works, v. p. 397. 
M 



178 BACON AND S0MEKSET. 

We have thus endeavoured to give those parti- 
culars which distinguish the position and spirit of 
Sir Francis Bacon throughout this tragedy. And it 
must be admitted that he lost sight of the simplicity 
of justice; that his supreme object was to meet and 
defeat the king's personal terror ; and that to succeed 
therein he not only availed himself of all the intri- 
cacies and provisions of the law, but definitely urged 
his majesty to employ means for silencing Somerset, 
which, as soon as he had gained his end, he might 
safely falsify. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SIR FEANCIS BACON OBTAINS THE GEEAT SEAL. 

In the latter portion of the preceding chapter, we 
found Sir Francis Bacon subordinating the power of 
his high office as attorney-general, to the individual 
anxieties of the king, ~We would fain believe that 
this arose from a perversion of loyal feeling ; but he 
was, meanwhile, pursuing another and purely per- 
sonal object. jSo love of charity, no reverence for 
his intellectual name, must blind us to the fact that, 
whilst he was every day laying his sovereign under 
the most humiliating obligations, he was, almost as 
often, urging his suit for the highest preferment in 
the law. Some months before he had incidentally, 
as it were, referred the king's notice to the illness of 
Egerton, the lord chancellor. At length, and while 
his majesty was in the most pitiable affright, he 
thus addresses him : — 

" It may please your most excellent majesty, 

" Your worthy chancellor, I fear,, goeth his last 
day. God hath hitherto used to weed out such servants as grew 
not fit for your majesty ; but now he hath gathered to himself one 
of the choicer plants, a true sage, or salvia, out of your garden ; 
but your majesty's service must not be mortal. 



180 BACON LOED CHANCELLOR. 

"Upon this heavy accident I pray your majesty, in ail 
humbleness and sincerity, to give me leave to use a few words. 
I must never forget, when I moved your majesty for the 
attorney's place, that it was your own sole act, and not my lord 
of Somerset's ; who when he knew your majesty had resolved 
it, thrust himself into the business to gain thanks ; and there- 
fore I have no reason to pray to saints. 

" I shall now again make oblation to your majesty, first of 
my heart ; then of my service ; thirdly, of my place of attorney, 
which I think is honestly worth £6000 per annum; and 
fourthly, of my place in the star-chamber, which is worth 
£1600 per annum; and with the favour and countenance of a 
chancellor, much more. I hope I may be acquitted of presump- 
tion if I think it, both because my father had the place, which 
is some civil inducement to my desire, and I pray God your 
majesty may have no worse twenty years in your greatness, than 
queen Elizabeth had in her model, after my father's placing ; and 
chiefly because the chancellor's place, after it went to the law, 
was ever conferred upon some of the learned counsel, and never 

upon a judge Now I beseech your majesty, let me 

put the present case truly. If you take my lord Coke, this will 
follow ; first, your majesty shall put an overruling nature into 
an overruling place, which may breed an extreme ; next, you 
shall blunt his industries in matter of your finances, which 
seemeth to aim at another place ; and lastly, popular men are 

no sure mounters for your majesty's saddle For 

myself, I can only present your majesty with gloria in obsequio; l 
yet I dare promise, that if I sit in that place, your business shall 
not make such short turns upon you as it doth ; but when a 
direction is once given, it shall be pursued and performed, and 
your majesty shall not be troubled with the due care of a king, 
which is, to think what you would have done in chief, and not 

how for the passages 2 

"Feb!/. 12, 1610." 

1 The glory of a cheerful obedience. 2 Works, v. p. 372. 



BACON LOED CHAXCELLOB. 181 

Our readers will feel amazement as they read this 
letter; at its indelicacy, for the chancellor was not 
dead, neither did he die of this sickness ; at the 
bad taste of asking favours from his sovereign at 
the moment he was himself actively and ultra- 
officially conferring favours on that sovereign; at 
his just then depreciating Lord Coke, his enemy, 
but still his rival ; above all, at his unqualified 
surrender of himself to the behests of his monarch, 
as the condition of his bargain for the great seal. 
In the end, he too faithfully redeemed his pledge. 

Eut, as we have hinted, Lord Egerton recovered, 
and Bacon had to inform the king : — 

" I do find, God be thanked, a sensible amendment in my 
lord chancellor : I was with him yesterday in private confer- 
ence about half-an-hour ; and this day again, at such a time 
as he did seal, which he endured well almost the space of an 
hour, though the vapour of wax be offensive to him. He is 
free from a fever, perfect in his powers of memory and speech : 
and not hollow in his voice nor look ; he hath no panting or 
labouring respiration ; neither are his coughs dry or weak. 
But whoever thinketh his disease is but melancholy, he maketh 
no true judgment of it; for it is plainly a formed and deep 
cough, with a pectoral surcharge ; so that at times he doth 
almost animam agere." 1 

Knowing what we do of E aeon's ambition to 
succeed Lord Egerton, the steps which he had taken 
in a premature anticipation of his death, the alarm 
he felt lest Lord Coke should outrun him, and the 
serious extent to which he had committed himself 

1 Works, v. p. 374 : " at times he is almost in the act of dying." 



182 BACON LOED CHANCELLOE. 

by prospective pledges to the king; we need no 
ordinary incredulity to think him disinterested, as 
he thus watched the effect of the very vapour of the 
wax upon the sufferer; felt his pulse; studied his 
colour ; tested his mental powers ; listened to his 
breathings and his cough; sounded the depths of 
his voice and his look; and at last concluded that 
there was a disease worse than a mere morbid 
feeling, with all the symptoms of an incurable decay. 
"With his mind thus bent upon obtaining the 
great seal, it was his surest course to obtain the 
influence of Sir George Villiers, already all-powerful 
with the king. It would appear, however, that this 
influence was volunteered, for we find the following 
letter among the earliest of their correspondence. 
It is indorsed " A letter to Sir Gr. Villiers, touching 
a message brought to him by Mr. Shute, of a promise 
of the chancellor's place ": — 

" Sir, 

" The message which I received from you by 
Mr. Shute hath bred in me such belief and confidence, as I 
will now wholly rely upon your excellent and happy self. 
When persons of greatness and quality begin speech with me 
of the matter, and offer me their good offices, I can but answer 
them civilly. But those things are but toys : I am yours surer 
to you than to my own life ; for as they speak of the turquois 
stone in a ring, I will break into twenty pieces before you 
have the least fall. God keep you ever. 

u Your truest servant, 

"F R - Bacon. 
" Feb. 15th, 1615. 



BACON LOED CHANCELLOE. 183 

"My lord chancellor is prettily amended. I was with, 
him yesterday almost half-an-hour. He used me with won- 
derful tokens of kindness. "We both wept, which I do not 
often." > 

Through the active good offices of his friend, now 
Viscount Villiers, the king offered Sir Francis the 
option of either an immediate appointment as a privy 
councillor, or the reversion of the great seal upon its 
vacancy. There were important reasons of state 
which made him choose the former; and he was 
sworn accordingly, retaining his attorney-generalship, 
but abandoning his private practice at the bar. Of 
the latter, he writes to Lord Yilliers : "Let the 
other matter rest upon my proof, and his majesty's 
pleasure, and the accidents of time. 2 

This union of the two offices was, to use his own 
words, " more than was three hundred years before." 
Notwithstanding his surrender of private practice, 
his labours must have been incessant; yet we find 
him, in a letter to his majesty, speaking of " a plen- 
tiful accession of time," and proposing to undertake 
the herculean task of "reducing and recompiling 
the laws of England." 3 This, together with his 
increased devotion to his philosophical works, again 
reveals his marvellous activity. 

It might have been expected that now, when his 
present position was so honourable, when the ameni- 
ties of science were so soothing, and when the future 
course of his ambition up to the highest point was so 

l Works, vi. p. 88. 2 i^id, v . p. 419. 3 Ibid, iv. p. 386. 



184 BACON LORD CHANCELLOR. 

clear and so secured, he could have afforded to forgive. 
But we lament to find that he did not. On several 
occasions we have had, and shall again have, to speak 
of the unrelenting hostility of Sir Edward Coke 
towards him. However, although we must regard 
the lord chief justice in this and many other exhibi- 
tions of character, to have forsworn the humanities 
of life, yet it must never be forgotten that " he was 
the greatest master of common law that ever had 
appeared in England;" that on the bench he was 
never corrupted, either by his king or by the suitors 
in his court, always severely vigilant of the preroga- 
tives of both ; and that in the senate his courage in 
defence of the subject never quailed before the frown, 
never relaxed before the smile, of the sovereign. It 
was about this time that his judicial integrity made 
him most obnoxious both to James and to Lord 
Yilliers. The one was enraged with him for his bold 
assertion of the independence of the bench; the 
other, for his resistance against encroachments upon 
the patronage of his office. In the quarrel with his 
majesty, Eacon, as was certain, espoused the side 
of the sovereign, even though it went to make the 
judges of the land the undeliberative machines of a 
despot. In the quarrel with the favourite, Bacon's 
choice was equally secure, if for no other reason, 
for the disgust he felt towards Sir Edward Coke, and 
the grateful affection which, we believe, he bore 
towards Lord Villiers. 

We need not give the particulars of these disputes. 



BACOX LOED CHANCELLOR. 185 

Suffice it to say, that both king James and Lord 
Villiers had their individual revenge to gratify. 
But the question was — how to reach so elevated an 
officer as the lord chief justice of all England. It 
■was true that, at that period, the judges were re- 
moveable at the king's pleasure. But Coke, notwith- 
standing his repulsiveness, was highly popular with 
the bar and with the people. The bar nobly preferred 
sound law with tyranny of temper, to an inadequate 
or illegal judgment with blandness. The people 
admired his jealousy of the rights of justice, although 
his administration of those rights was unfeeling. In 
those days of national disaffection, to crush such a 
man, and on grounds for which his country prized 
him, would have been infinitely perilous. The 
astuteness of Bacon, sharpened by his own personal 
antipathies against Coke, came to the rescue. 

Our task is a most ungrateful one, but we must 
perform it, and record the means which he adopted, 
and their issue. The lord chief justice had been the 
author of law reports upon some five hundred 
decided cases. After his scrutiny of them for the 
occasion, Bacon urged and sustained "the frivolous, 
unfounded, preposterous charge, that Coke had in- 
troduced several things in derogation of the royal 
prerogative." 1 The memory of Sir Francis seems to 
have forgotten the fact that he himself had delibe- 
rately written of these very volumes : " To give every 
man his due, had it not been for Sir Edward Coke's 

1 Campbell, ii. p. 357. 



186 BACON LOBD CHANCELLOB. 

reports, which though they may have errors, and 
some peremptory and extra-judicial resolutions more 
than are warranted, yet they contain infinite good 
decisions and rulings over cases, the law by this time 
had been almost like a ship without ballast." 1 

The paper which he drew up for the king's 
guidance, in his speech to his privy council in allega- 
tion against the lord chief justice, is full of the 
bitterest invective. For example : his majesty was 
to say " that he had noted in him a perpetual turbu- 
lent carriage, first towards the liberties of his church 
and estate ecclesiastical; towards his prerogative 
royal, and the branches thereof; and likewise 
towards all the settled jurisdictions of all his other 
courts, the high commission, the star-chamber, the 
chancery, the provincial councils, the admiralty, the 
duchy, the court of requests, the commission of 
inquiries, the new boroughs of Ireland; in all 
which he had raised troubles and new questions; 
and lastly, in that which might concern the safety of 
his royal person, by his exposition of the laws in 
cases of high treason." 2 

Triumphant though he was, we envy not Bacon's 
feelings when, as he sat at the council table, he 
watched the countenance of the foe that had coarsely, 
publicly insulted him, and had been the obstacle of 
his ambition from his early manhood, as it was 
signified to Coke that he should " forbear his sitting 
at "Westminster, &c, not restraining nevertheless 

i Works, iv. p. 367. s Works, vi. p. 128. 



BACON LOED CHAXCELLOB. 187 

any other exercise of his place of chief justice in 
private." We envy him not when, on the thirteenth 
of November, he sat down to write : "1 send yonr 
majesty a form of discharge for my Lord Coke from 
his place of chief justice of yonr bench." 1 Above 
all, we envy him not as he trampled on his prostrate 
enemy. He penned a letter, of which Lord Campbell 
has high warrant for saying: ""In no composition 
that I have met with is there a greater display of 
vengeful malignity. Under pretence of acting a 
Christian part, he pours the oil of vitriol into the 
wounds he had inflicted." 2 This is mournfully true. 
And if anything could make the deed worse, it was a 
feeling which we will not name, with which he 
says : "I must intreat liberty to be plain, a liberty 
that at this time I know not whether or no I may 
use safely; / am sure at other times I could not" z 

Bacon's provocations had been great and long con- 
tinuous. Though his moral susceptibilities were 
slight, those of his intellect were of the keenest ; 
and Coke had, in innumerable instances, presumptu- 
ously and grossly outraged them. Nevertheless, 
even when he failed in Christian principle, he should 
have remembered his own words to Lord Sanquhar : 
"Your temptation was revenge, which the more 
natural it is to man, the more have laws both divine 
and human sought to repress it; ' Mihi vindicta, 9 
[Vengeance is mine.] But in one thing you and 
I shall never agree, that generous spirits, you say, 

* Works, vi. p. 131. 2 Campbell, ii. p. SCO. 3 Works, v. p. 40-1. 



188 EACON LOUD CHA1TCELLOE. 

are hard to forgive : no, contrariwise, generous and 
magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive ; and it is 
a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to 
forgive ; 

Corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni." l 

From his insinuations against the memory of Sir 
Eobert Cecil, and this his conduct towards Lord 
Coke, we suspect that he had not this nobility of 
disposition. And yet we must not charge his 
language with hypocrisy: "If any have been my 
enemies, I thought not of them ; neither hath the 
sun almost set upon my displeasure; but I have 
been as a dove, free from superfluity of malicious- 
ness.' ' For there are some minds, and we believe 
Bacon's to have been one of them, in whom the 
spirit of revenge slumbers in unconsciousness until 
some sudden and unsought-for facility presents itself; 
whilst there are other minds in whom its ranklings 
are ever restless for satisfaction. "Which of the two, 
as far as civil life is concerned, be the preferable, it 
is not our province to endeavour to determine ; but 
that both are as unwise as they are unchristian is 
certain : " Love ye your enemies, and do good .... 
and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the 
children of the highest : for he is kind unto the 
unthankful and the evil." What would not have 
been Lord Bacon's moral support when Sir Edward 
Coke subsequently presented the fatal indictment 

1 Works, iv. p. 396 : " The generous lion is content with having 
prostrated his foes." 



baco:n t loed chancelloe. 189 

against him, if he could have recalled the time when 
he had " overcome evil with good !" 

But at this moment he had scarcely time for 
listening to the prospective warnings of conscience. 
His honours now fell thick upon him. The Prince 
Charles appointed him chancellor of the duchy of 
Cornwall, and he had scarcely assumed his robes 
when the great seal was sent him. On the seventh of 
March, 1617, Lord Egerton resigned, and Bacon was 
immediately appointed his successor. 



CHAPTER XII. 

LORD BACOtf FEOM HIS APPOINTMENT AS CHANCELLOli 
TILL HIS FALL. 

Gist the evidence of former chapters it must be 
admitted, that Lord Bacon's ambition in his civil 
life was always coordinate with, if not above, his 
ambition in his life philosophical. The very frequency 
with which he says, "the depth of the three long 
vacations I would reserve, in some measure, free from 
business of state, and for studies, arts, and sciences, to 
which in my own nature I am most induced," 1 united 
as it was with the most untiring pursuit after politi- 
cal advancement, must make us suspect that he was 
conscious of the tyranny of the latter, was often 
discomposed by it, and thus, as often, strove to utter 
a self-justifying protest. Whether it was that, 
because he had been taunted by Lord Burleigh and 
Sir Bobert Cecil with the political incapacity of a 
mere scholar, he resolved to vindicate both his own 

1 Works, iv. p. 494. 



BACOtf AS CHAjffCELLOE TILL HIS TALL. 191 

personal dignity, and that of science ; or whether it 
was that, because he had received from these his 
relatives such unfair and such ignorant discounte- 
nance and opposition, he manfully aimed to revenge 
himself by his own elevation ; or whether it was 
that he had within himself this thirst for distinc- 
tion, we cannot say. However, let the grounds 
of his gratification have been what they may, it 
would be difficult to exaggerate the triumphant 
feeling with which he gained the eminence. 

It would be a scene full of the highest moral 
instruction, if we could truly realize him in his 
chambers, when he repaired thither immediately 
after his installation as lord keeper of the great 
seal. All his life he had yielded faith to presenti- 
ments; and we cannot doubt that the prophetic 
words of queen Elizabeth had become a load- star 
of the most powerful fascination: now it had led 
him to the summit radiant with its reflected light. 
He now could retort upon the selfish insults of 
his relations, and, more than all, could smile upon 
the defeat and humiliation of his bitter, small- 
souled enemy, Sir Edward Coke. He had long ago 
been ranked amongst the first in letters, he was 
now made first in law. Even his desire of wealth, 
imperious as that feeling was within him from his 
debts and his love of expenditure, was now fulfilled. 
He had but just arrived at home; the great seal, 
with its silken purse, lay on the table before him; 
he looked upon it; his emotions crowded on him; 



192 BACON AS CHANCELLOE 

he sat down and wrote, with all the exuberance 
of gratitude, to Villiers, Earl of Buckingham, who 
had been instrumental in his triumph : — 

" My dearest lord, 

" It is both in cares and kindness that small ones 
float up to the tongue, and great ones sink down into the heart 
in silence. Therefore, I could speak little to your lordship to- 
day, neither had I a fit time ; but I must profess thus much, 
that in this day's work you are the truest and perfectest mirror 
and example of firm and generous friendship that ever was in 
court. And I shall count every day lost wherein I shall not 
either study your well-doing in thought, or do your name honour 
in speech, or perform your service in deed. Good my lord, 
account and accept me 

" Your most bounden and devoted friend 
and servant of all men living, 

"F*- Bacon, C. S." * 

But were all his emotions so jubilant, that no 
feature of his face betokened an anxiety ? Deeply 
implicated though he had been in struggles and 
intrigues, yet we find in him many an affection, 
though sered, towards truth and goodness. And 
was he then unconscious of the high self-respect, 
of the truth, of the intellectual dignity which 
he had violated in order to reach that spot? Did 
he feel no humiliation at being made, through 
his own self-degrading supplications, the official, 
though the highest, of king James, the arrogance 
of whose prerogative was an insult to the idea of a 

1 Works, t. p. 463. 



TILL HIS FALL. 193 

monarchy, and whose conduct degraded the idea of 
a man? And were there no disquietudes within 
that bosom, as there came before him the vindic- 
tive and most powerful assailants to wdiich he was 
thenceforth to become a mark more vulnerable than 
ever: 

We need the testimony of personal experience only 
to assure us, that the possession of an object which 
has been long and earnestly pursued after, often 
presents a sad contrast, in feelings of comparative 
chagrin and disappointment, to those glowing hopes 
and imaginings which we had previously entertained. 
It may, therefore, most naturally be supposed that 
Lord Bacon, at this hour of his full success, did thus 
reason with himself: " For what have I been so long 
and so painfully toiling? Have I really been 
working up so steep and so rugged an ascent, with 
the prospect of gaining this spot, and now do I grasp 
nothing but a cloud, and is even it, with all its 
gorgeous hues and colours, soon to vanish away?" 
The inspired Psalmist had to acknowledge that 
"man, at his best state, is altogether vanity;" 1 and 
we may conclude that, at this moment, Lord Bacon's 
reflective spirit pronounced that Psalmist to be right. 

But soon other and more grave proofs came of 
their own accord. Por awhile he worthily and 
peacefully discharged his high office ; but few months 
transpired before he found that the height of his 
eminence was only likely to make the descent of his 

1 Psalm xxxix. 5. 
X 



194 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

fall the more precipitous, the more rapid, and the 
more humiliating. 

The very next morning after his promotion he 
went to his predecessor, most gracefully and, we 
believe, sincerely thanked him for those good offices 
which had secured for him his own success, and 
pledged himself to the dying statesman as to the 
future ennobling honours of his family. 

Then came a proud day for him. On the seventh 
of May he went to Westminster with the most costly 
pomp, and took his seat as lord keeper in the midst 
of a crowd of the highest nobles of his country, and 
was duly sworn. Profoundly interesting to the 
student of the human heart is the speech that Lord 
Bacon then delivered, when compared with his subse- 
quent career. We shall only extract one sentence : 
" I shall be careful there be no exaction of any new 
fees, but according as they have been heretofore set 
and tabled. As for lawyer's fees, I must leave that 
to the conscience and merit of the lawyer, and the 
estimation and gratitude of the client." When he 
uttered these purposes, we would trust he was honest 
in resolve. Alas! that a few months proved the 
utter and melancholy imbecility of such a purpose. 
The ideal theory of his duty was as minute as it was 
great ; but he foreswore it. 

He was no sooner in his new and almost supreme 
power, than he received the congratulations of the 
universities of Cambridge and Oxford; great bodies 
of learning whom his literary labours must have 



TILL HIS FALL. 195 

especially conciliated, the former, more particularly, 
as he was one of her own sons. TThat were the 
terms of those several congratulations we know not ; 
but his lordship's answers are preserved : — 

u TO THE RENOWXED ITXIYERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, HIS DEAR 
AXD REYEREXE MOTHER. 

1 I am debtor for your letters, and of the time likewise 
that I have taken to answer them. But as soon as I could 
choose what to think on, I thought good to let you know ; 
that although much you may err in your valuation of me, yet 
you shall not be deceived in your assurance ; and for the other 
part also, though the manner be to mend the picture by the 
life, yet I would be glad to mend the life by the picture, and to 
become and be as you express me to be. Your gratulations 
shall be no more welcome to me than your business or occasions, 
which I will attend ; and yet not so, but that I shall endeavour 
to prevent them by my care of your good. And so I commend 
you to God's goodness. 

u Your most loving and assured friend and son, 

"F*-Bacox, C.S.i 
" Gorhambury, April 12, 1617." 

And thus also he wrote to Oxford : — 

" TO THE REVEREXD UNIVERSITY OF OXEORD. 

" Amongst the gratulations I have received, none are more 
welcome and agreeable to me than your letters, wherein the 
less I acknowledge of those attributes you gave me, the more I 
must acknowledge of your affection, which bindeth me no less 
to you that are professors of learning, than my own dedication 
doth to learning itself. And therefore you have no need to 
doubt but I will emulate, as much as in me is, towards you the 
merits of him that is gone, by how much the more I take 

l Works, v. p. 434. 



196 BACON AS CHANCELLOB 

myself to have propriety in the principal motive thereof. And 
for the equality you wrote of I shall, by the grace of God, far 
as may concern me, hold the balance as equally between the two 
universities, as I shall hold the balance of other justice between 
party and party. And yet in both cases I must meet with some 
inclinations of affection, which nevertheless shall not carry me 
aside. And so I commend you to God's goodness. 

"Your most loving and assured friend, ^ 

" Gorhambury, April 12, 1617." -daco.n. 

Surrounded thus with every high sympathy, with 
the cordial welcomes of his brethren at the bar, with 
specially genial feelings of approbation from the peers 
of the realm, above all, with proud family greet- 
ings from the great universities of his country, Lord 
Bacon commenced his chancellorship. 

It is necessary for us, in order that we may be the 
better fitted for estimating his future character and 
action, to transcribe both his own letter to Bucking- 
ham, and the answer which he received upon this 
critical occasion. 

On the morning after his installation he writes 
thus to the Duke of Buckingham : — 

"Yesterday I took my place in chancery, which I hold 
only for the king's grace and favour, and your constant friend- 
ship. There was much ado and a great deal of world ; but this 
matter of pomp, which is heaven to some men, is hell to me, or 
purgatory at least. It is true I was glad to see that the king's 
choice was so generally approved, and that I had so much inter- 
est in men's good will and good opinions, because it maketh me 
the fitter instrument to do my master service, and my friend 

also. 

1 Works, vi. p. 142. 



TILL KIS FILL. 197 

"After I was set in chancery, I published his majesty's 
charge which he gave me when he gave me the seal, and what 
rules and resolutions I had taken for the fulfilling his command- 
ments. I send your lordship a copy of that I said. My Lord 
Hay coming to take nis leave of me two days before, I told him 
what I was meditating, and he desired me to send him some re- 
membrance of it ; and so I could not but send him another copy 
thereof. Men tell me it hath done the king a great deal of 
honour; insomuch that some of my friends that are wise men 
and no vain ones, did not stick to say to me, that there were not 
these seven years such a preparation for a parliament; which 
was a commendation, I confess, pleased me well. I pray take 
some fit time to shew it his majesty, because if I misunderstood 
him in anything, I may amend it ; because I know his judgment 
is higher and deeper than mine. 

"I take infinite contentment to hear his majesty is in great 
good health and vigour ; I pray God preserve and continue it. 
Thus wishing you well above all men, next my master and his ; 
I rest 

"Tour true and devoted friend and servant, 

"F K - Bacon, C.S. 1 
"May®** 1617." 

To this Buckingham replied : — 

" My honoured lord, 

li I have acquainted his majesty with your letter, 
and the papers that came inclosed, who is exceedingly well 
satisfied with that account you have given him therein, 
especially with the speech you made at the taking of your place 
in chancery. Whereby his majesty perceiveth that you have 
not only given proof how well you understand the place of a 
chancellor, but done him much right also, in giving notice unto 
those that were present, that you have received such instruc- 
tions from his majesty; whose honour will be so much the 

1 Works, t. p. 470. 



198 BACON AS CHANCELLOE 

greater, in that all men will acknowledge the sufficiency and 
worthiness of his majesty's choice, in preferring a man of such 
abilities to place, which besides cannot but be a great advance- 
ment and furtherance to his service : and I can assure your 
lordship, that his majesty was never so well pleased as he is 
with this account you have given him of this passage. Thus 
with the remembrance of my service, I rest 

" Your lordship's ever at command, 

"G. Buckingham. 1 
" Edinburgh, 18 May, 1617." 

It was but some few months after this his great 
political triumph, that his thoughts were occupied as 
to his own immediate personal safety, in consequence 
of his connexion with the then Earl of Buckingham. 
We have already said how convinced we are that, 
strange as it may seem, the friendly confidence of a 
great mind with a weak and unprincipled one, will 
most surely, in the end, terminate in the serious 
deterioration of the former. "Weakness of character 
may stand a common chance of being improved 
by association; but the more probable consequence 
is, that the mind which is not merely open to im- 
pression, but fitted to entertain, and thenceafter act 
out that impression, will receive it, and will lend to 
it its own native though perverted vigour. And 
this we must carefully retain in mind, as we would 
charitably judge of Lord Bacon's character and con- 
duct. He had degraded himself from his position as 

1 Works, v. p. 475. The speech referred to in these letters was 
delivered by Lord Bacon " at the taking of his place in chancery." It is 
too long for insertion in this memoir, hut will amply repay perusal. 
Vid. iv. p. 486. 



TILL HIS FALL. 199 

a scholar ; as a gentleman high in his profession of 
law ; as a member of parliament ; for he had lent 
himself with the most pusillanimous subserviency 
to a courtier, who was vain and flippant and unpa- 
triotic. 

We cannot conceive of a more humiliating position 
than that which Lord Bacon had now to occupy. No 
one will question his genius, or that he was con- 
scious of its possession. Few will deny his insight 
into human character. Naturally observant and 
meditative ; politically trained to watch and specu- 
late upon the minds and qualifications of those with 
whom he had to struggle; he must have become 
especially quick and decisive in his judgments about 
those who were around him. Then, what horrible, 
self- degrading anguish must he not have undergone 
when, full of noble purposes, full of resplendent 
views of truth, and with a range of intellectual 
vision such as has been rarely given to man, the 
author of the " Essays" and the "Instauratio 
Magna," the applauded, honoured chieftain of the 
House of Commons, first meanly supplicated the 
patronage of Buckingham, who never had a great 
thought; and then magnified to adoration king 
James, who seems never to have had a great prin- 
ciple ! Let us ponder over this almost inexplicable 
prostration of mighty intellect before the miserable 
flauntings of a royal favourite, and the ferule of a 
crowned pedagogue. 

What was his anxiety to disclaim all personal 



200 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

ambition at this moment, and how other men dis- 
trusted such professions, Lord Bacon has himself 
unwittingly recorded. Speaking of himself, he says : 

" When his lordship was newly advanced to the great seal, 
Gondomar came to visit him. My lord said, that he was to 
thank God and the king for that honour ; but yet, so he might 
be rid of the burden, he could very willingly forbear the honour ; 
and that he formerly had a desire, and the same continued with 
him still, to lead a private life. Gondomar answered, that he 
would tell him a tale of an old rat, that would needs leave the 
world, and acquainted the young rats that he would retire into 
his hole, and spend his days solitarily, and would enjoy no more 
comfort ; and commanded them, upon his high dipleasure, not to 
offer to come in unto him. They forbore two or three days ; at 
last, one that was more hardy than the rest, incited some of his 
fellows to go with him, and he would venture to see how his 
father did ; for he might be dead. They went in, and found the 
old rat in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese. So he applied 
the fable after his witty manner." l 

Exactly a week after Eacon had received the great 
seal, the king and his court left London on a visit 
to Scotland, and the new lord keeper was mean- 
while charged with the highest executive as well 
as judicial functions. Yet, notwithstanding such 
numerous and such weighty duties, he devoted such 
persevering industry to the affairs of chancery, that 
within one month he had, with the fullest satisfac- 
tion to the bar as to the wisdom of his judgments, 
cleared off the whole arrears of his court. On this 
occasion he thus writes to Buckingham : — 

i Works, ii. p. 422. 



TILL HIS FALL. 201 

"My very good lord, 

"This day I have made even with the business of 
the kingdom for common justice ; not one cause unheard ; the 
lawyers drawn dry of all the motions they were to make ; not 
one petition unanswered. And this I think could not he said 
in our age before. This I speak not out of ostentation, but out 
of gladness when I have done my duty. I know men think I 
cannot continue if I should thus oppress myself with business ; 
but that account is made. The duties of life are more than 
life ; and if I die now, I shall die before the world will be 

weary of me, which in our times is somewhat rare I 

humbly pray you to commend my service, infinite in desire, 
howsoever limited in ability, to his majesty ; to hear of whose 
health and good disposition is to me the greatest beatitude 
which I can receive in this world. And I humbly beseech his 
majesty to pardon me, that I do not now send him my account 
of council business, and other his royal commands, till within 
these four days : because the flood of business of justice did 
hitherto wholly possess me ; which I know worketh this effect, 
as it contenteth his subjects, and knitteth their hearts more and 
more to his majesty ; though, I must confess, my mind is upon 
other matters, as his majesty shall know, by the grace of God, 
at his return. God ever bless and prosper you. 
" Your lordship's true and most devoted 
friend and servant, 

"F R - Bacon. 1 
"Whitehall, June $ th - 1617." 

We have seen how diligently, and with what 
success, he had commenced the administration of his 
own court: to this he now added the most con- 
ciliating and modest behaviour towards his brother 
judges. 

1 Works, vi. p. 149. 



202 BACON AS CHANCELLOB 

" Yesterday,' ' he states in his * Account of Council Busi- 
ness,' "which was my weary day, I bid all the judges to dinner, 
which was not used to be, and entertained them in a private 
withdrawing chamber with the learned counsel. When the 
feast was past I came amongst them, and sat me down at the 
end of the table, and prayed them to think I was one of them, 
and but a foreman. I told them I was weary, and therefore 
must be short, and that I would now speak to them upon two 
points. Whereof the one was, that I would tell them plainly, 
that I was firmly persuaded that the former discords and 
differences between the chancery and other courts were but 
flesh and blood ; and that now the men were gone, the matter 
was gone ; and that for my part, as I would not suffer any the 
least diminution or derogation from the ancient and due power 
of the chancery ; so if anything should be brought to them at 
any time, touching the proceedings of the chancery, which did 
seem to them exorbitant or inordinate, that they should freely 
and friendly acquaint me with it, and we should soon agree ; or 
if not, we had a master that could easily both discern and rule. 
At which speech of mine, besides a great deal of thanks and 
acknowledgments, I did see cheer and comfort in their faces, as 
if it were a new world." . . . .* 

Would that this spirit of openness and just dealing 
had been maintained ! But in this very paper one 
more questionable, and another more vindictive, 
proceeding is avowed : — 

"Some two days before I had a conference with some 
judges, not all, but such as I did choose, touching the high 
commission, and the extending of the same in some points ; 
which I see I shall be able to dispatch, by consent, without his 
majesty's further trouble. 

i Works, v. p. 472. 



TILL HIS TALL. 203 

" I did call upon the committees also for the proceedings in 
the purging of Sir Edward Coke's Reports, which I see they go 
en with seriously.' ' 

These last statements sadly deserve our notice. 
The former betrays Lord Bacon's servile readiness 
to extend the king's prerogative, though it entailed 
upon himself the dishonourable step of tampering 
with the more facile judges, and of shunning the 
counsel of the firmer and more patriotic ones. The 
latter reveals his undiminished spite against Sir 
Edward Coke, and the eagerness with which he 
availed himself of his new powers, in order to 
complete the humiliation of his foe. And that this 
humiliation could only be effected at the cost of 
those rights of his country, for the noble advocacy 
of which Sir Edward Coke was upon his trial, only 
adds a still darker hue to the implacableness of the 
lord keeper. 

And to teach us that man's wrong- doing carries 
within it its own punishment, this spirit of revenge 
was the direct cause of Lord Bacon's shame and 
ruin. Sir Edward Coke, through Bacon's persecu- 
tions, had been displaced from his chief -justiceship ; 
his name as a privy councillor had been erased ; and 
now those very Eeports which still command the 
profoundest homage of the bar, and which, as we 
have seen already, even Sir Erancis Bacon when 
attorney-general had declared to "contain infinite 
good decisions and rulings over of cases," so that 
without them " the law by this time had been 



204 TIACON AS CHx\2s T CELLOE 

almost like a ship without ballast;" these were to 
be impugned for assailing the royal prerogative. On 
the brink of this appalling precipice, the astute 
lawyer conceived a stroke of consummate policy 
which both saved himself, and began the series of 
Lord Bacon's fatal disasters. It was obvious that, if 
by any means, he could attract to his cause the 
favour of the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham, his 
security would be certain. That favour he did 
succeed in attracting, and thus : Sir Edward Coke's 
daughter by his second wife, Lady Hatton, was the 
heiress of immense property : this child he offered in 
marriage to Sir John Yilliers, the brother of the 
favourite; it was eagerly accepted by the brothers 
and their mother. This was sure to throw around 
the persecuted ex-chief-justice the aegis of the power 
of Buckingham. Still Lord Bacon's position might 
have remained unshaken ; but he had already become 
dizzy from his eminence, and now was blinded by 
the fury of his fear. Instantly he set afoot intrigues 
with the mother of the heiress; and so important 
to his own happiness and safety did he think the 
prevention of this marriage, that he actually entered 
on an alliance with the very woman who, in her 
own person, had years ago scornfully rejected the 
offer of his hand. Forgetful of the policy of masking 
himself behind her ladyship, in order that the eye of 
the all-powerful favourite might not see him, he was 
mad enough to challenge the direct hostility of the 
Duke. He thus wrote to him : — 



TILL HIS FALL. 205 

u ITy very good lord, 

"I shall write to your lordship of a business 
which your lordship may think to concern myself; but I do 
think it concerneth your lordship much more. For as for me, 
as my judgment is not so weak as to think it can do me any 
hurt, so my love to you is so strong, as I would prefer the 
good of you and yours before mine own particular. 

"It seemeth secretary TYinwood hath officiously busied 
himself to make a match between your brother and Sir Edward 
Coke's daughter ; and, as we hear, he doth it rather to make a 
faction, than out of any great affection to your lordship ; it is 
true, he hath the consent of Sir Edward Coke, as we hear, upon 
reasonable conditions for your brother ; and yet no better than, 
without question, may be found in some other matches. But 
the mother's consent is not had, nor the young gentlewoman's, 
who expecteth a great fortune from her mother, which without 
her consent is endangered. This match, out of my faith and 
freedom towards your lordship, I hold very inconvenient both 
for your brother and yourself. 

u First. He shall marry into a disgraced house, which in 
reason of state is never held good. 

"Next. He shall marry into a troubled house of man 
and wife, which in religion and Christian discretion is dis- 
liked. 

" Thirdly. Your lordship will go near to lose all such your 
friends as are adverse to Sir Edward Coke ; myself only 
except, who out of a pure love and thankfulness shall ever be 
firm to you. 

"And lastly and chiefly, believe it, it will greatly weaken 
and distract the king's' service ; for, though in regard of the 
king's great wisdom and depth, I am persuaded those things 
will not follow which they imagine ; yet opinion will do a great 
deal of harm, and cast the king back, and make him relapse 
into those inconveniencies which are now well on to be 
recovered. 



206 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

" Therefore my advice is, and your lordship shall do yourself 
a great deal of honour if, according to religion and the law 
of God, your lordship will signify unto my lady, your mother, 
that your desire is that the marriage be not pressed, or 
proceeded in, without the consent of both parents \ and so 
either break it altogether, or defer any farther delay in it 
till your lordship's return : and this the rather for that, besides 
the inconvenience of the matter itself, it hath been carried so 
harshly and inconsiderately by secretary Winwood, as, for doubt 
that the father should take away the maiden by force, the 
mother, to get the start, hath conveyed her away secretly ; 
which is ill of all sides. Thus hoping your lordship will not 
only accept well, but believe my faithful advice, who by my 
great experience in the world must needs see further than your 
lordship can ; I ever rest 

44 Your lordship's true and most devoted 
friend and servant, 

" F R - Bacon, C. S. 1 
«July\% 1617." 

"We record this letter with anguish. "Written — by a 
man so great in intellect, so large and noble in 
theoretic principles, so conscious of the magnanimity 
of truth, and now so highly raised above the small 
suggestions of envy — to a man so unadorned by aught 
save the freaks of fortune, and the disgraceful 
favouritism of his sovereign, what can be our 
inference, but that Lord Bacon had surrendered to 
the craven anxiety of a revenge, which was aggra- 
vated by jealousy, all that philosophy should have 
made dear to him, and all that religion should have 
made inviolable ? Perhaps no more instructive 

1 Works, v. p. 476. 



TILL HIS FALL. 207 

parallel to that of Hainan and jlordeeai (setting 
aside their personal characters) ever occurred. Bich 
in all the affluence of knowledge, of wealth, of 
power, Lord Bacon knew no rest while his foe lived, 
though he was only "at the gate"; and now the 
restless discontent of his soul becomes a bandage 
upon his vision ; but though he steps forward unwit- 
tingly, the eyes of justice guide him to that chasm 
which not even his agility can overleap. 

"What must have been his self-torture while Buck- 
ingham treated this letter with scornful silence ! In 
his agony of impatience, Lord Bacon takes another and 
still more aggravating step : he writes upon the subject 
to that sovereign who was, if possible, more con- 
cerned for the welfare of his minion than that minion 
was for himself. We must give the entire of this 
long letter, because it is so truthful in its exhibition 
of Lord Bacon's feelings at the time : and deeply 
painful to the kindly student of his species though 
it is, it must be pondered over as a picture of a 
human heart degraded down to fear and sophistry by 
the plottings of revenge. 

" It may please your most excellent majesty, 

" I think it agreeable to my duty, and the great 
obligation wherein I am tied to your majesty, to be freer than 
other men in giving your majesty faithful counsel while things 
are in passing, and more bound than other men in doing your 
commandments, when your resolution is settled and made 
known to me. 

" I shall therefore most humbly crave pardon from your 
majesty if, in plainness and no less humbleness, I dekver to 



208 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

your majesty my honest and disinterested opinion in the business 
of the match of Sir John Villiers, which I take to be magnum 
in parvo [great in little] ; preserving always the laws and 
duties of a firm friendship to my lord of Buckingham, whom I 
will never cease to love, and to whom I have written already, 
but have not heard yet from his lordship. 

" But first I have three suits to make to your majesty, hoping 
well you will grant them all. 

'• The first is, that if there be any merit in drawing on that 
match, your majesty should bestow the thanks not upon the zeal 
of Sir Edward Coke to please your majesty, nor upon the 
eloquent persuasions or pragmaticals of Mr. Secretary "Winwood, 
but upon them that, carrying your commandments and direc- 
tions with strength and justice in the matter of the government 
of Dieppe, in the matter of Sir Kobert Bich, and in the matter 
of protecting the lady, according to your majesty's command- 
ment, have so humbled Sir Edward Coke, as he seeketh now 
that with submission, which, as your majesty knoweth, before 
he rejected with scorn; for this is the true orator that hath 
persuaded this business ; as I doubt not but your majesty, in 
your excellent wisdom, doth easily discern. 

" My second suit is, that your majesty would not think me so 
pusillanimous, as that I, that when I was but Mr. Bacon had 
ever, through your majesty's favour, good reason at Sir Edward 
Coke's hands, when he was at the greatest, should, now that 
your majesty of your great goodness hath placed me so near 
your chair, being, as I hope, by God's grace and your instruc- 
tions, made a servant according to your heart, fear him, or take 
umbrage of him, in respect of mine own particular. 

" My third suit is, that if your majesty be resolved the match 
shall go on, after you have heard my reasons to the contrary, I 
may receive therein your particular will and commandments from 
yourself, that I may conform myself thereunto ; imagining with 
myself, though I will not wager on women's minds, that I can 
prevail more with the mother than any other man. For if I 



TILL HIS FALL, 209 

should be requested in it from my lord of Buckingham, the 
answers of a true friend ought to be, that I had rather go 
against his mind than against his good ; but your majesty I 
must obey; and, besides, I shall conceive that your majesty, out 
of great wisdom and depth, doth see those things which I see 
not. 

" Now, therefore, not to hold your majesty with many words, 
which do but drown matter, let me most humbly desire your 
majesty to take into your royal consideration, that the state is at 
this time not only in good quiet and obedience, but in a good 
affection and disposition. Your majesty's prerogative and autho- 
rity having risen some just degrees above the horizon more 
than heretofore, which hath dispersed vapours ; your judges are 
in good temper ; your justices of the peace, which is the body 
of the gentlemen of England, grow to be loving and obsequious, 
and to be weary of the humour of ruffling ; all mutinous spirits 
grow to be a little poor, and to draw in their horns , and not the 
less for your majesty's disauthorizing the man I speak of. Now 
then, I reasonably doubt, that if there be but an opinion of his 
coming in with the strength of such an alliance, it will give a 
turn and relapse in men's minds into the former state of things, 
hardly to be holpen, to the great weakening of your majesty's 
service. 

" Again, your majesty may have perceived, that as far as it 
was fit for me in modesty to advise, I was ever for a parliament ; 
which seemeth to me to be " cardo rerum," or " summa summa- 
ruru" [the turning point; or, in other words, the sum and 
substance of affairs], for the present occasions. But this, my 
advice, was ever conditional ; that your majesty should go to a 
parliament with a council united, and not distracted ; and that 
your majesty will give me never leave to expect, if that man 
come in. Not for any difference of mine own, for I am 
11 omnibus omnia" [all things to all men] for your majesty's 
service ; but because he is by nature unsociable, and by habit 
popular, and too old now to take a new ply. And men begin 



210 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

already to collect, yea, and to conclude, that he that raiseth such 
a smoke to get in, will set all on fire when he is in. 

" It may please your majesty, now I have said, I have done; 
and as I think I have done a duty not unworthy the first year 
of your last high favour, I most humbly pray your majesty to 
pardon me, if in anything I have erred ; for my errors shall 
always be supplied by obedience ; and so I conclude, with my 
prayers for the happy preservation of your person and estate. 
"Your majesty's most humble, bounden, 
and most devoted servant, 

"F R - Bacon, C.S. 1 
" Gorhambury, July 25, 16 17." 

To this letter we would urge our readers to pay- 
especial attention, for it discloses much. "We would 
not particularly demur to the terms of address to his 
sovereign, in which, servile though it may seem to 
us, Lord Bacon was only enacting the part of the 
finished courtier of his day. Eut we beg notice to 
be taken of the perfect art with which he presents 
his enemy's possible success, as threatening the king's 
favourite aims as to his prerogative ; the skill with 
which he underrates the active efforts of the secretary 
Winwood, one who was his own foe, and Sir Edward 
Coke's firm friend ; and above all, as the betrayer of 
his trembling anxiety, the protest which he utters 
against the bare idea of his feeling alarm at the 
possible restoration of Sir Edward : a protest which 
he should have been wise enough to know, would be 
a thorough confirmation of its contrary. Alas ! this 
great man had gained his curule chair, but the seat 

i Works, v. p. 473. 



TILL HIS FALL. 211 

was insecure and uneasy ; and little-minded passions 
kept him from seeing the high policy of assuming 
quietude while he sat upon it. The laurel crown 
had heen woven upon his brow, but jealousy robbed 
him of his philosophical calmness; and because there 
was one thorn, he not only allowed his forehead to 
betray his pain, but with an eagerness which rent 
the chaplet, insisted on its withdrawal. 

On the same day that he wrote to his sovereign, 
he sent another letter to the Earl of Buckingham, and 
afresh betrayed his impatience. But meanwhile, the 
actual movements for this marriage became more de- 
cided, and made the complication of diplomatic 
strategy the more perplexing. Lady Hatton, ruled 
by the suggestions of Lord Bacon, abstracted her 
child from her father's home, and concealed her in 
her country-house. Sir Edward Coke ascertained this 
surreptitious retreat of his child ; demanded a warrant 
from the lord-keeper for her rescue ; was refused ; and 
then availed himself of pure force, and regained pos- 
session of her person. This anew exposed him to 
legal proceedings, and the lord-keeper descended to 
instruct the attorney-general to file informations 
against him in the only court of the country which 
was above appeal, and over which his authority 
was paramount : namely, the star-chamber. 

Soon, however, he received a rebuke from the 
monarch, which drew from Lord Bacon an answer so 
fawningly submissive, and so degradingly deprecating, 
that nothing but the laws of historic truth would 



212 T2AC0N AS CIIAXCELLOIi 

make us transcribe it. It is not necessary for us to 
quote the king's letter ; it is more than enough to 
give his chancellor's reply : — 

" May it please your most excellent majesty, 

" I do very much thank your majesty for your 
letter, and think myself much honoured hy it. For though it 
contain some matter of dislike, in which respect it hath grieved 
me more than any event which hath fallen out in my life ; yet 
because I know that reprehensions from the best masters to the 
best servants are necessary, and that no chastisement is 
pleasant for the time, but yet worketh good effects ; and for 
that I find intermixed some passages of trust and grace ; and 
find also in myself, inwardly, sincerity of intention and con- 
formity of will, however I may have erred ; I do not a little 
comfort myself, resting upon your majesty's accustomed favour, 
and most humbly desiring that any one of my particular 
motions may be expounded by the consent and direct course, 
which your majesty knoweth, I have ever held in your service. 

u First, I do acknowledge that this match of Sir John 
Villiers is * magnum in parvo'* [a great matter in a small 
compass], in both senses that your majesty speaketh. But 
your majesty perceiveth well that I took it to be, in a further 
degree, ' majus in parvo* [a greater matter], in respect of your 
service. But since your majesty biddeth me to confide upon 
your act of empire, I have done. For, as the scripture saith, 
to God all things are possible ; so certainly to wise kings much 
is possible. But for that second sense that your majesty 
speaketh of, * magnum in parvo,' in respect of the stir ; albeit it 
being but a most lawful and ordinary thing, I most humbly 
pray your majesty, if I signify to you that we here take the 
loud and vocal, and as I may call it, streperous carriage to have 
been far more on the other side, which indeed is inconvenient, 
rather than the thing itself. 

"Now for the manner of my affection to my Lord of Buck- 



TILL HIS FALL. 213 

inghnm, for whom I would spend my life, and that which is to 
me more, the cares of my life ; I must humbly confess that it 
was in this a little parent-like, this being no other term than 
his lordship hath heretofore vouchsafed to my counsels ; but in 
truth, and it please your majesty, without any grain of clisesteem 
for his lordship's discretion. For I know him to be naturally 
a wise man, of a sound and staid wit, as I ever said unto your 
majesty. And again, I know he hath the best tutor in Europe ; 
but yet I was afraid that the height of his fortune might make 
him too secure ; and, as the proverb is, a looker-on sometimes 
seeth more than a gamester." . . . . 1 

Lord Bacon received another letter from king 
James, which was still more severe and which — 
coming as it did merely for the maintenance in im- 
pertinent anthority of a most unworthy courtier, and 
written too by a monarch whose individual character, 
and whose legislative right to assume such arrogance, 
must have so often aroused questionings among his 
subjects, ought to and would, if the lord chancellor 
had been a man of firmness, have produced the 
most indignant resistance — simply obtained from his 
lordship the most abject submission. "We speak, we 
know, in strong terms about king James; but we 
believe the terms we use to be far from too strong. 
In deep humility would we speak of any and of every 
man, and most especially of him who was one of God's 
dignities ; but there are the interests of others who 
were his fellow men, and, in the sight of their 
Creator, just as valuable as himself, and whose 
historic fame claims our fidelity as much as does his 

l Works, vL p. 157. 



214 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

own; and we, therefore, though it be a sad contribu- 
tion to the subject of this biography, record our belief 
that our country's archives are sullied by the acts of 
no weaker a ruler, and that Lord Bacon's tolerance 
of his conduct, and, alas ! flattery to his face, is even a 
more degrading fact than any one of those which we 
shall have hereafter so mournfully to recount. It is 
an afflicting duty to have to add, that this great man 
thus called down upon himself still more insulting 
rejoinders to other letters, and that when his monarch 
and his parasite returned to Whitehall, Lord Bacon 
had to beg an audience with the latter, and to endure 
the unheard-of contumely of waiting in an ante- 
chamber, amidst liveried lacqueys, though with the 
great seals in his hands, before he could approach 
the presence of one who was as great a charlatan 
as he was a profligate. But then, even then, the 
Lord Bacon of the highest actual honour which a 
subject could attain, and the Lord Bacon of the 
almost idolatrous worship of science in after ages, 
flung himself, when he was admitted to that con- 
temptible minion, "on the floor, kissed the favour- 
ite's feet, and vowed never to rise till he was 
forgiven." 1 What a picture ! what a solemn comedy! 
The most far-sighted intellect, the seer of science, on 
his knees, and in earnest humiliation at the foot of 
one whom all society, notwithstanding its charity to 
the dead, pronounces to have been little better than 
a clever intriguer. 

l Campbell's Lives, ii. p. 375. 



TILL HIS FALL. 215 

Bacon seems to have recovered somewhat from 
this check in his course, and to have gone forward in 
his high duties. His efforts about the marriage 
proved fruitless ; that marriage was celebrated ; Lord 
Coke was saved from further prosecutions, and re- 
stored to his rank as privy- councillor, though not to 
his chief- justiceship ; and Lord Bacon retained his 
power. But he had compromised himself. He had 
lost caste in his own consciousness; the caste of a 
man of high civil dignity, of vast knowledge, and 
of large scientific purposes, before a man of the most- 
extreme littleness in every tiling but his monarch's 
favour. Nothing but experience, or extensive sur- 
veys of human life, can apprise us of the fatal 
moral check which any like circumstances can 
create. 1 

Thenceforth Lord Bacon was too ashamed to avow 
any independence of spirit before Lord Buckingham. 
Although his was so great a mind, he became a 
w r eak tool in those hands which, he was perfectly 
aware, were the hands of guilty folly. Bucking- 
ham, during these days of Lord Bacon's moral 
palsy, forced him into acts which created monopolies, 
the principle of which he had previously condemned ; 
and it is probable that these acts of weakness arose 
from that inert moral condition into which the late 

i Buckingham, in one of his letters at this time to Bacon, thus 
arouses his alarm : "I protest, all this time past, it was no small grief 
unto me to hear the mouth of so many, upon this occasion, open to load 
you with innumerable, malicious, and detracting speeches, as if no 
music were more pleasing to my ear than to rail of you, which made 
me rather regret the ill-nature of mankind, that, like dogs, love to set 
upon them that they see snatched at." Works, vi. p. 172. 



216 BACON AS CHANCELLOE 

humiliating passages of his life had prostrated him, 
not from any native love of that delinquency, which 
at length ruined him, and which we have now to 
recount. 

Upon so grave a topic it will be well for us to 
dwell. The future Duke of Buckingham was rapa- 
cious; and he was dishonestly acute enough to se^ 
how his power over the compromised Lord Bacon 
might be a means of gratifying his passion. He 
gave patents to Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis 
Michell, wherewith these sons of avarice monopo- 
lized licences to victuallers and the manufacturers 
of gold and silver lace. Of course, the royal 
favourite received the most ample bribes. And 
when their personal frauds, and their excesses and 
extortions by their agents, aroused the indignation 
of the country, and called for the interference of 
the government, Bacon, seduced by their ringleader, 
threw the shield of his name and station before the 
offenders, allured the attorney and solicitor-general 
into a collusive cooperation, added all the warrant 
of his high office to the extortion, and, on the admis- 
sion of Sir Edward Villiers to partnership in the 
guilty spoil, punished all who afterwards were 
chargeable with infraction on its exclusiveness. 

Then, moreover, the lord keeper yielded to another 
and, if possible, a still more outrageous interference 
with his integrity. He allowed Buckingham to influ- 
ence him, if not dictate, as to his judicial decisions. 
Numerous letters are before us in which he received 



TILL HIS FALL. 217 

without remonstrance suggestions, the avowed object 
of which was to incline him to prejudge cases. 
Whether he suffered them to mislead him, is another 
question. The fact alone is too conclusive, as a 
proof that he no longer breathed an atmosphere in- 
corruptible. 

The uneasiness of his conscience was however 
lulled, for the moment, by new honours — honours 
most probably obtained as rewards for his servility. 
The higher title of lord chancellor was conferred 
upon iiim, and a few months afterwards, he was 
raised to the peerage as Baron Verulam. In con- 
ferring this latter dignity, king James avowed that 
he was " moved by the grateful sense he had of the 
many faithful services rendered him by this worthy 
person." And the circumstances which accompanied 
this grant of the patent of nobility, were most 
nattering. The Prince of Wales, the Duke of 
Lennox, the Marquis of Buckingham, the Marquis 
of Hamilton, the Earls of Pembroke, Arundel and 
Surrey, were the witnesses. The year following he 
was created Viscount St. Albans. 

At the very time of his receiving such high honours, 
the literary reputation of Lord Bacon was hourly ad- 
vancing ; nay, became even more preeminent abroad 
than in his own country. His Essays, translated this 
same year into Italian by his friend Mr. Matthew, 
attained unexampled success. In the words of the 
faithful and honest Bawley : " Neither the weight 
of business, nor the pomps of a court, could divert 



218 BACON AS CHANCELLOR 

his attention from the study of philosophy. Those 
were his avocations and encumbrances : this was his 
beloved employment, and almost the only pleasure 
in which he indulged his freer and better hours. 
He gave to the public in 1620 his Novum Organum> 
as a second part to his grand Instauration of the 
Sciences ; a work that for twelve years together he 
had been methodizing, altering, and polishing, till 
he had laboured the whole into a series of aphorisms, 
as it now appears. Of all his writings, this seems 
to have undergone the strictest revision, and to be 
finished with the severest judgment." 1 This is not 
the place for us to remark upon this great work, 
except to observe that — what has ever been con- 
sidered as the noblest product of his genius — what 
has obtained for him the supreme title of "the 
father of intellectual philosophy" — what, in its 
preparation, must have brought him into commerce 
with the largest and most ennobling thoughts of 
science — was given to the public in the midst of 
actions and intrigues of public life, from which 
many a pretender would have revoltingly turned 
aside. 

Soon, alas ! such became the pressure of his poli- 
tical anxieties, that these philosophical recreations, 
though incidental, were perforce suspended. But 
before he had to enact the painful and fruitless part 
of his own defence, he was called to an effort which, 
if he had honourably discharged it, might have 

1 Works, i. p. 42. 



TILL HIS FALL. 219 

redeemed him from much of the obloquy which 
history casts upon his name. 

Sir "Walter Ealeigh — the man of British fame, the 
polished gentleman, the perfect courtier, the open- 
handed friend, the large-minded statesman, the 
warrior, the poet, the philosopher and historian — Sir 
Walter Ealeigh, whose gallantry and wit had so often 
smoothed the cares of the great queen Elizabeth; 
whose chivalrous exploits had gained renown both 
in her own reign and that of her successor ; whose 
statesmanship had often won from Lord Burleigh and 
Sir Robert Cecil both surprise and admiration; whoso 
lays were the songs of his country, and his writings 
the theme of European praise — was demanded as a 
victim by king James. And Lord Bacon carried the 
sacrificial knife. For although he took no part in 
the proscription of a being so illustrious, he acquiesced 
in his condemnation and his murder. Here again 
he showed his infatuated short-sightedness. The 
whole of England would have sympathized in his 
protest at the brutal conduct of his arch-enemy, Sir 
Edward Coke, who had formerly presided at the trial 
of Sir Walter, and would have merged their suspicions 
of all that was personal to himself, in their feeling 
for a man so vindictively accused. But the chancellor 
overlooked all these high and righteous policies, and 
bowed to the warrant of Sir Walter's death. This 
connivance at the sacrifice of his brother-in-letters 
was a sad prelude to his own more prolonged and 
more degrading martyrdom. 



220 BACOX AS CHANCELLOR 

Without specifying the charges of corruption 
which soon came against him, we have merely to 
state that his keen-sighted foe, Sir Edward Coke, 
watched his every movement as lord chancellor, 
seized with the avidity of revenge every act which so 
high and public a functionary was taking, and then 
denounced those few of which he saw that he could 
skilfully avail himself. This foe, Sir Edward Coke, 
was a member of the House of Commons. He was, as 
we have said before, a man of the most penetrating 
legal genius; he had often repressed Bacon in his 
career ; Bacon had, as often, repaid back, and at high 
interest, his insolence; Bacon had finally outwitted his 
opponent, and had become lord chancellor, bepraised, 
meanwhile, for his collateral honour as a man of 
literature and science ; an honour with which Sir 
Edward Coke's one-sided talents could feel no 
sympathy, and the glory of which his ignorance 
made only the more vexatious and irritating. But 
the moment came for his retort, and he used it most 
mercilessly. 

Lord Bacon had, by his own confession, been guilty 
of corrupt practices in his seat in chancery. This 
we cannot question, however great may be our 
anxiety for his character. He himself distinctly 
admits, in his address to the House of Lords : — 

" But to pass from the motions of my heart, whereof God 
is only judge, to the merits of my cause, whereof your lord- 
ships are judges, under God and his lieutenant; I understand 
there hath been heretofore expected from me some justification ; 



TILL HIS FALL. 221 

and therefore I have chosen one only justification, instead of all 
other, out of the justifications of Job. For after the clear 
submission and confession which I shall now make unto your 
lordships, I hope I may say and justify in these words : * 1 
have not hid my sin as did Adam, nor concealed my faults in my 
bosom.' This is the only justification which I will use. 

M It resteth, therefore, that without fig leaves I do ingenu- 
ously confess and acknowledge that, having understood the 
particulars of the charge, not formally from the house, but 
enough to inform my conscience and memory, I find matter 
sufficient and full both to move me to desert the defence, and to 
move your lordships to condemn and censure me. Neither will 
I trouble your lordships by signing those particulars which 
I think may fall off. . ..." l 

We have thus, perhaps somewhat prematurely, 
quoted Lord Bacon's own admission. But, for our 
truthful analysis of his character and conduct, it was 
necessary. Many other possible considerations might 
suggest themselves, and would do so, and would have 
weight; but herein we are anticipated. We know, 
from the chancellor's own acknowledgment, that he 
had been guilty of receiving bribes, and that he could 
make no defence. It would, therefore, be as idle as 
it would be wrong, to endeavour to palliate this 
awful failure in the conduct of one whom we would 
wish, if possible, to honour. That he did thus sin, 
and that this his sin was of the highest aggravation, 
we as readily as we sorrowfully admit. But, in 
our canvass of human actions and human motives, 
we cannot forget that he had become an unwitting 

1 Works, iv. p. 533. 



222 BACON AS CHANCELLOR TILL HIS FALL. 

instrument in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham ; 
that the tone of his principles had become deteriorated 
through his intercourse ; that he held his place only 
by the favourite's sufferance ; and that thus morally 
weakened and politically entangled, he became vul- 
nerable to influences to which, we would charitably 
hope, of his own accord he would have never yielded. 
A large survey of his character leads us to trust that 
it was miserable weakness, not deliberate hypo- 
crisy ; but with this latter he must be chargeable, 
unless we regard him as having been blinded by the 
casuistry of his false position ; for it was about this 
very time that, among other instructions to Hutton, 
on his appointment as one of the judges of the 
Common Pleas, he urged on him, "that your hands, 
and the hands of your hands, I mean those about you, 
be clean and uncorrupt from gifts, from meddling in 
titles, and from serving of turns, be they of great or 
small ones." 1 But we must reserve the particulars 
of his fatal self-inconsistency for the next chapter. 

l Works, iv. p. 508. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



LORD BACON S FALL. 



Loel Chief Justice Campbell so eloquently introduces 
this mournful topic, that we must quote the passage, 
though it be somewhat long : — 

"Now was his worldly prosperity at its height, and he 
seemed in the full enjoyment of almost everything that man can 
desire. The multitude, dazzled by the splendour of his reputa- 
tion as a statesman, an orator, a judge, a fine writer, a philoso- 
pher, for a time were blind to the faults in his character, and 
overlooked the evil arts by which he had risen. The murmurs 
of those whom he had wronged, were drowned by the plaudits 
of his admirers. He was courted and flattered by all classes of 
the community. He was still able to keep down the arrears of 
judicial business in his court; and bystanders, who were not 
interested in the cases before him (a large class compared to the 
suffering suitors), were struck with the eloquence and apparent 
equity of his decisions. He was on the best terms with the 
king and the favourite; and it was generally expected that, 
like his father, he would keep his office while he lived. 
Foreigners visiting this country were more eager to see him a3 



224 loud bacon's fall. 

the author of the Novum Organum, than as lord high chan- 
cellor. 

" We have a specimen of the magnificent mode in which he 
lived, from the description of the grand banquet he gave at 
York House on entering his sixtieth year. Ben Jonson, who was 
present, celebrates ' the fare, the wine, the men,' and breaks out 
in enthusiastic praise of the illustrious host : — 

' England's high chancellor, the destin'd heir, 
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair, 
Whose even thread the fates spin round and full 
Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.* 

" He had a villa at Kew, to which he could retire for a day 
in seasons of business ; and his vacations he spent at Gorharn- 
bury, * in studies, arts, and sciences, to which in his own 
nature he was most inclined ;' and in gardening, * the purest 
of human pleasures/ Here, at a cost of £10,000, he erected a 
private retreat, furnished with every intellectual luxury, to 
which he repaired when he wished to avoid all visitors, except 
a few choice spirits, whom he occasionally selected as the com- 
panions of his retirement and lucubrations. 

" From thence, in January, 1621, he was drawn, not 
unwillingly, to the king's court at Theobald's ; for there he 
was raised in the peerage by the title of Viscount St. Alban's, 
his patent being expressed in the most flattering language, 
particularly celebrating his integrity in the administration of 
justice; and he was, with great ceremony, according to the 
custom of the times, invested by the king with his new dignity, 
Buckingham supporting his robe of state, while his coronet was 
borne by the Lord Wentworth. In answer to a complimentary 
address from the king, he delivered a studied oration, enume- 
rating the successive favours he had received from the crown, 
and shadowing forth the fresh services he was to render, in his 
future career, as evidence of his gratitude. 

" In little more than three months from this day he was 
a prisoner in the Tower, stripped of his office for confessed 



225 

corruption, and condemned to spend the remainder of his days 
in disgrace and penury." 1 

The ancient moralists have frequently adduced the 
downfal of the Lydian Croesus as an instance of the 
inconstancy of human affairs ; but, striking as it 
is, it wants many of those affecting features which 
distinguish the case before us. The fall of Croesus 
was only one of the many sudden results of war. It 
was simply the rapid prostration of a monarch from 
the eminence of mere power and pomp and wealth. 
Whereas, the acclivity from which Lord Bacon was 
precipitated in a moment, was high enough, and 
gorgeous enough, to make his fall visibly appalling ; 
but, far more, it was so surmounted with all the 
elements of genius and philosophy, and was so en- 
nobled by the homage of the whole intellectual world, 
that the contrast of the abyss of shame and feeble- 
ness into which he was plunged is, perhaps, unparal- 
leled. And so secured was he upon his throne, by 
his unrivalled talents, that no detractions of mere 
envy could have displaced him. He was guarded by 
every sentinel but those of virtue and God's favour, 
and he was, therefore, assailable. His enemies were 
vigilant, and soon made the ruinous discovery. 

We have remarked already, that there was a 
strange mtermixture of moral power and moral weak- 
ness in the character of Lord Bacon ; we may add, 
that there was a similar incongruity of far-sighted- 
ness on some occasions, and short-sightedness on 

1 Campbell, ii. pp. 385-6. 
P 



226 loed bacon's fall. 

others. What, little short of infatuation, could now 
have urged him to induce the king to summon a 
parliament ? In those days, the monarch was accus- 
tomed to carry on his government, for years together, 
without the aid of the great council of his people. 
The chancellor, from his own experience in the House 
of Commons, must have been aware of its general 
disposition to investigate the proceedings of crown 
officers, and of the imminent danger which he would 
himself run, of coming under their strictures. But 
overweening as to his influence, and calculating 
upon his powers of address, he promoted their as- 
sembling. 

Ko sooner had the House of Commons gone through 
the accustomed preliminaries, and given a presump- 
tive proof of the fairness of their spirit, by a liberal 
vote of supply to the crown, than they adopted 
measures which must have struck the lord chancellor 
with terror ; seeing that they accepted the leadership 
of Sir Edward Coke, whom he knew to be as 
inveterate in his hostility as ever. Coupling together 
the facts that the ex- chief -justice was the prime 
instigator of all the movements which invisibly but 
surely led to the destruction of Lord Bacon, and that 
while all the other public prosecutors conducted their 
inquiries with singular moderation and tenderness, 
he alone betrayed personal feelings, we may conclude 
that he was the plotter of the entire series. His 
profound knowledge of the human mind, especially 
of the English mind, made him see that, unless he 



LOUD BACOX'S FALL. 227 

masked his own vindictive purposes beneath measures 
which were obviously for the common weal, the 
public would, from the first, indignantly discoun- 
tenance him. It was, therefore, that he placed 
foremost, investigations which seemed to threaten 
Buckingham rather than Bacon, and which, from 
their very audacity, might make others sympathize 
with his courage ; whilst the fact that they tended 
to bring his own son-in-law, Buckingham's brother, 
to justice, migh.t lend them the air of patriotic disin- 
terestedness. He obtained the place of messenger to 
the House of Lords from the House of Commons, and 
Lord Bacon had himself to announce from the wool- 
sack: "The message from the House of Commons 
by Sir Edward Coke and others is this, that the 
Commons, having entered into a due consideration of 
divers heavy grievances touching patents and mono- 
polies, do desire a conference with your lordships 
thereupon, leaving the time and place and numbers 
to your lordships' appointment." 1 The office of the 
chancellor compelled him to signify their lordships' 
acquiescence to Sir Edward Coke. 

It will well repay us to watch the progress of 
Lord Bacon's feelings as the cloud gathered black- 
ness. In regard to the event which we have 
just recounted, he remarks, in his letter to Buck- 
ingham : — 

"I do hear from divers of judgment, that to morrow's 
conference is like to pass in a calm, as to the referees. Sir 

i March 3d- 1621. 



228 lokd bacon's fall. 

Lionel Cranfield, who hath heen formerly the trumpet, said 
yesterday, that he did now incline to Sir John Walter's opinion 
and motion, not to have the referees meddled with, otherwise 
than to discount it from the king ; and so not to look back, but 
to the future. And I do hear almost all men of judgment in 
the house wish now that way. I woo nobody : I do but listen, 
and I have doubt only of Sir Edward Coke, who I wish had 
some round caveat given him from the king ; for your lordship 
hath no great power with him ; but I think a word from the 
king mates him. ,, l 

Here we observe evident discomposure at the 
conduct of his enemy, and a timid but politic effort 
to obtain his sovereign's earliest, alas ! unconstitu- 
tional, interference. 

This storm was, however, arranged to discharge 
itself chiefly upon others. Another and more direct 
one was already in the horizon. Another committee 
of the Commons was appointed to inquire into " the 
abuses of courts of justice." 2 Its object, under the 
same indefatigable avenger, was to arraign Lord 
Bacon for bribery and corruption. And now came 
the moment when the proposed victim could have 
said with Cardinal "Wolsey : — 

" Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

Xing James might have saved his servant by a 
summary dissolution of the parliament. He was 
under no personal necessity for continuing its sittings, 
for his subsidies had been already and munificently 

i Works, vi. p. 275. * March 12th. 1621. 



LOED BACONS FALL. 229 

voted. And no one will pretend that any deference 
to constitutional principles prevented him. But it 
has been surmised, and we fear too justly, that he 
found himself under the alternative of sacrificing to 
public resentment either his guilty chancellor, or his 
still more guilty minion. With the extortionate 
malpractices of the latter he had been personally 
acquainted ; perhaps he had been a partner in them. 
And he was shrewd enough to know, that the only 
chance of escape for his favourite from ruin, and for 
himself from unkingly mortification, was to make a 
scape-goat, the nature of whob3 throes might absorb 
the attention of spectators. He allowed the inquiries 
to proceed, and the committee resolved on impeach- 
ing the lord chancellor, chiefly for the following : — 

" The one concerning Christopher Awbrey, and the other 
concerning Edward Egerton. In the canse depending in the 
chancery between this Awbrey and Sir William Bronker, 
Awbrey feeling some hard measure, was advised to give the lord 
chancellor £100, the which he delivered to his counsel, Sir 
George Hastings, and he to the lord chancellor. This business 
proceeding slowly notwithstanding, Awbrey did write divers 
letters, and delivered them to the lord chancellor, but could 
never have any answer from his lordship ; but at last delivering 
another letter, his lordship answered : If he importuned him, he 
would lay him by the heels.'' 

We need not recount the evidence on which this 
accusation was verified, as Lord Bacon subsequently 
confessed it. 

11 The case of Mr. Edward Egerton is this : there being 
divers suits between Edward Egerton and Sir Eowland Egerton 



230 loed bacon's fall. 

in the chancery, Edward Egerton presented his lordship, a little 
after he was lord keeper, with a bason and ewer of £50 and 
above, and afterwards he delivered unto Sir George Hastings 
and Sir Richard Young £400 in gold, to be presented unto 
his lordship. Sir Richard Young presented it, his lordship took 
it, and poised it, and said it was too much; and returned 
answer, that Mr. Egerton had not only enriched him, but had 
laid a tye upon his lordship to do him favour in all his just 
causes." x 

Of this, as well as of twenty-six other charges of 
having received monies from litigants whose suits 
were still pending, he made full confession. It must 
not be overlooked, however, that, especially in the 
two cases which were most prominently specified, 
he did not suffer himself to be biassed in the favour 
of those from whom he received these presents; 
for he gave " killing decrees" against them. "We 
confess that we should be disposed to accept this in 
his favour, together with the fact, that the receipt 
of presents by the judges was in those days frequent, — 
were it not that he had so often, and under such a 
variety of circumstances, uttered his high judicial 
condemnation of the practice. The guilt was 
enormous. He afterwards perceived and bewailed 
it. But we are not prepared to brand his name 
with all that contumely which would justly attach 
to that of one who, to-day, in a similar position, 
acted similarly. Far be it from us to strive to lessen 
the turpitude of sins of any order into which human 
beings may be beguiled, so that their repetition 

1 Works, iv. p. 527. 



LOED bacon's faxl. 231 

should become the easier for the tempted; but the 
above facts must not be lost sight of. The equity of 
his decisions was unquestioned ; and the customs of 
his day may have so induced an obliquity of moral 
vision, as that he deceived himself into believing 
the truth of assertions such as the following : — 

" TO TEE MAHQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. 

u My very good lord, 

" Your lordship spoke of purgatory. I am now 
in it ; but my mind is in a calm ; for my fortune is not my 
felicity. I know I have clean hands, and a clean heart, and, I 
hope, a clean house for friends or servants. But Job himself, 
or whosoever was the justest judge, by such hunting of matters 
against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem 
foul, especially in a time when greatness is a mark, and accusa- 
tion is the game. And if this be to be a chancellor, if the 
great seal lay upon Hounslow Heath, nobody would take it up. 
But the king and your lordship will, I hope, put an end to 
these my straits, one way or other. And, in troth, that which 
I fear most is, lest continual attendance and business, together 
with these cases, and want of time to do my weak body right 
this spring by diet and physic, will cast me down ; and that it 
will be thought feigning or fainting. But I hope in God I shall 
hold out. God prosper you." l 

"to the ejng. 
" It may please your most excellent majesty, 

" Time hath been when I have brought unto you 
'gemitum columbce* [the moanings of the dove] from others, 
now I bring it from myself. I fly unto your majesty with the 
wings of a dove, which once, within these seven days, I thought 
would have carried me a higher flight. When I enter into 
myself, I find not the materials of such a tempest as is come 

i Works, vi. p. 277. 



232 loed bacon's fall. 

upon me : I have been, as your majesty knoweth best, never 
author of any immoderate counsel, but always desired to have 
things carried * suavibus modis' [by gentle means]. I have 
been no avaricious oppressor of the people ; I have been no 
haughty, or intolerable, or hateful man in my conversation or 
carriage ; I have inherited no hatred from my father, but am a 
good patriot born. Whence should this be ? for these are the 
things that use to raise dislikes abroad. 

" For the House of Commons, I began my credit there, and 
now it must be the place of the sepulture thereof ; and yet this 
parliament, upon the message touching religion, the old love 
revived, and they said, I was the same man still, only honesty 
was turned into honour. 

" For the upper house, even within these days, before these 
troubles, they seemed as to take me into their arms, finding in 
me ingenuity, which they took to be the straight line of noble- 
ness, without any crooks or angles. 

"And for the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, 
when the booh of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be 
found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a 
depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever 1 
may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times, 

"And therefore I am resolved when I come to my answer, 
not to trick up my innocency, as I writ to the Lords, by 
cavillations or voidances ; but to speak to them the language 
that my heart speaketh to me in excusing, extenuating, or 
ingenuously confessing ; praying to God to give me the grace to 
see the bottom of my faults, and that no hardness of heart do 
steal upon me, under show of more neatness of conscience than 
is cause. But not to trouble your majesty any longer, craving 
pardon for this long mourning letter ; that which I thirst after, 
as the hart after the streams, is, that I may know by my match- 
less friend 1 that presenteth to you this letter, your majesty's 
heart (which is an abyssus of goodness as I am an abyssus of 

1 Buckingham. 



lord bacon's fall. 233 

misery) towards me. I have been ever your man, and counted 
myself but an usufructuary of myself, the property being yours. 
And now making myself an oblation to do with me as may best 
conduce to the honour of your justice, the honour of your 
mercy, and the use of your service, resting as clay in your 
majesty's gracious hands, 

F&-S T - Albax, Cane. 1 
March 25 th - 1621. 

This letter to his royal master was unavailing. 
He was left to the judgment of his peers; and, anni- 
hilating though was their verdict, it must be said to 
their honour, that it was arrived at with reluctance, 
but with unanimity, and was pronounced with ge- 
nerous consideration. Indeed, most of the two 
houses, and most of the country, seemed to have 
identified his good fame and his glory with that of 
themselves. His humiliation was a precious morsel 
for Sir Edward Coke; out he had the privilege, 
whether it mortified him or was akin to his tastes, 
we say not, to have to eat it chiefly alone. 

But before we proceed to the sentence which was 
to be pronounced, we must take a rapid survey of 
some minuter movements that took place, and which 
we have omitted, in order the more prominently to 
exhibit the leading features of this moral tragedy. 

So long as Lord Bacon had any ground to hope for 
the king's protection, it must be confessed that he 
" talked with scorn and defiance of these accusations." 
It was not until he found that his sovereign was in 
quest of popularity, protesting "that monopolies 

1 Works, v. p. 549. 



234 loed bacon's tall. 

should be put down, and that guilt in high places 
deserved high punishment; " it was not until he 
found this same monarch saying, in his message to 
the parliament, " that he was very sorry a person so 
much advanced by him, and sitting in so high a place, 
should be suspected ; that he could not answer for all 
others under him, though his care in the choice of 
judges had been great; but if this accusation could 
be proved, his majesty would punish him to the full ; 
that the king would, if thought fitting, here grant a 
commission under the great seal of England, to 
examine all upon oath that could speak in the busi- 
ness ; l it was not until he found that Buckingham 
had given a hint to the parasitical courtiers that they 
might safely treat with discourtesy him whom, for 
their interest's sake, they had delighted to honour, 
that his alarm became real. Thenceforth, Eacon's 
conduct is a grievous specimen of the struggles of a 
degraded soul. He, who had at first unblush- 
ingly denied his guilt, now creeps, under the 
pressure of alarm, towards the truth, and makes 
admissions which were so qualified, that even his 
benignant judges, the peers, had to pass the resolu- 
tion : — 

" That the lord -chancellor's confession is not fully set down 
by his lordship, in the said submission, for three causes : — 

i Pari. Hist. 1223. Here again Sir Edward Coke exerted his per- 
spicacity, not, we believe, so much for the sake of constitutional justice 
as for that of his malice, when he took a right exception to some of the 
words of this message, and begged " they would take heed this com- 
mission did not hinder the manner of their parliamentary proceeding 
against a great public delinquent." 



lord bacon's fall. 235 

"1. First, his lordship confesseth not any particular hrihe or 
corruption. 

" 2. Xor showeth how his lordship heard the charge thereof. 

" 3. The confession, such as it is, is afterwards extenuated in 
the same submission ; and, therefore, the lords have sent him a 
particular of the charge, and do expect his answer to the same 
with all convenient expedition." 1 

During this distressing correspondence Lord Bacon 
had fallen ill. They who would doubt the sincerity 
of his sickness can be those men only who are unable 
to appreciate the humiliating anguish of so powerful 
a mind. Commissioners were appointed to act during 
his absence. Sir James Ley, chief-justice of the 
King's Bench, was their leader, and immediately on 
his entrance on his office, and his taking his place 
upon the woolsack, a conference was demanded by 
the House of Commons ; and, as its result, the lords 
" commended the incomparable good parts of the lord 
chancellor; they magnified the place he held, from 
whence bounty, justice, and mercy, were to be dis- 
tributed to the subjects; but they were obliged to 
declare that the lord chancellor was accused of bribery 
and corruption, in this his eminent place." 

It was on the next day that Buckingham — 
avowedly as Lord Bacon's friend — stated in his 
speech to the House of Lords that "he had been 
twice to see him, being sent to him by the king ; that 
the first time his lordship was very sick and heavy, 
but the second time he found him better, and 
much comforted with the thought, that the complaint 

1 Works, iv. p. 536. 



236 loed bacon's fall. 

against him was come into this house, where he 
assured himself to find honourable justice, in confi- 
dence whereof his lordship had written a letter to the 
house." That letter was only a preliminary appeal 
to their benevolent dispositions to do him, so high 
a member of the upper house, full justice. An 
answer was returned to him " that it was the wish of 
the house that his lordship should clear his honour 
from all aspersions cast upon it, and that they prayed 
he would provide for his defence." * This was most 
courteous. 

But, as we have seen, he was ill ; and it was to be 
expected. The frightful exposure which a mind so 
sensitive, both from his high position and his large 
sympathies with high fame, must have felt approach- 
ing, was more terrible than the torture of an Indian 
at the stake. Yet, though he had to rise from a 
spot whereon he could say, " All night I make my bed 
to swim, I water my couch with my tears," he must 
seek a private audience with the king, his master, 
For that audience, he had noted down arguments 
which he would urge; the chief of which we have, 
however, already given in his more formal letter to 
his majesty. Of much that transpired at that 
critical interview we know nothing. There is the 
greatest historic probability that, notwithstanding the 
high breeding of Lord Bacon — so truly displayed, as 
it was, in the midst of his sad dishonour — the coarse 
mind of king James forced the doomed chancellor to 

1 Journals of Lords, 18, Jac. 1. 



lord bacon's fall. 237 

allude to many a reminiscence of that monarch's 
individual guilt and political self- compromise. Lord 
Bacon, in his despair, besought the sovereign, whom 
he had too slavishly served, instantly to dissolve 
parliament. The king, as urgently, recommended 
him to submit to the judgment of the peers, and 
promised him, whatever might be the verdict, rein- 
statement in his dignities. Bacon exclaimed: " I see 
my approaching ruin : there is no hope of mercy in 
a multitude. "When my enemies are to give fire, am 
I to make no resistance, and is there to be none to 
shield me ? Those who strike at your chancellor will 
strike at your crown. I am the first, I wish I may 
be the last sacrifice." Bacon was a prophet. Per- 
haps they who think bitterly about him, might be 
disposed to select from sacred history some re- 
creant one as his parallel. But, be that as it may, 
there came before the eye of this seer, whose vision 
as to future science and future philosophical civiliza- 
tion was so true, a prospect of misery to the 
monarchy to Great Britain; one of the incipient 
causes of which was, a king's collusion with the guilt 
of a chancellor, whom he deserted when he was found 
out; and the other was, his slow murder of his 
relative, Arabella Stuart, who never pretended or 
wished for a throne, which, but for considerate 
loyalty to him as the true successor, she might have 
endangered. 

Let us reverently — for its occupier is one of the 
most distinguished of men ; let us with sorrowful but 



23S lord bacon's fall. 

charitable awe — for its occupier is a fallen great man ; 
draw aside one fold of the curtains of Lord Bacon's bed, 
on which he flung himself in self-consuming remorse 
and despair, after this last fruitless interview with 
the king. " During several days he remained in his 
bed, refusing to see any human being. He passion- 
ately told his attendants to leave him, to forget him, 
never again to name his name, never to remember 
that there had been such a man in the world." 1 
" And is this," he must often, and in heart-breaking 
bitterness, have said to himself, "is this to be the 
result of my sixty years of slavery of the brain? 
"Where are the benisons of my mother, whose heart 
would burst could she now see me convulsed with 
dishonour ; where are my grave father's prophecies, 
who if he now saw the column of his house thus torn 
of its architrave and severed in its shaft, would wish 
to lie beneath it as his tomb'; where the gay and hearty 
cheers of my ancient friends at Gray's Inn ; where the 
hopes of my noble-minded competitors at the bar; 
where the shouts of applause of the House of Commons, 
that dear spot of my true renown ; where the confi- 
dences in me of men of science ; where the words of 
' God speed' with which my mother university sent 
me, a second time, from her bosom ; where are my 
friends; where is the God whose statutes I have, 
against light and knowledge, so basely deserted ? Are 
these, all these, now watching to upbraid me on this 
my living bier? " Thou once great, now fallen, man ! 

1 Ztlontagne's Life of Bacon, cccxxviii. 



LOED bacon's fall. 239 

we would commit no act, take no step of lightness 
towards thy couch. But thy first great Essay was on 
"Truth:" for Truth, melancholy though were thy 
wanderings, thou didst press onward with more 
avidity, and didst gain a higher summit than any 
other uninspired man : tell us, are not these thy moral 
throes, the struggles of a conscience which was in thy 
bosom, although thou hadst imprisoned her? And 
are the words which thy lips utter, the reassertions 
of honour and of truth, which once thou didst love 
so well ? 

During this frightful paroxysm, he wrote that 
full confession to the House of Lords, from which 
we have already quoted. It was dexterous in 
some of its allusions ; but it would be the grossest 
uncharitabieness to charge them with false self- 
palliating design. "When it was read, it was resolved 
" that certain lords do go unto the lord chancellor, 
and show him the said confession, and tell him that 
the lords do conceive it to be an ingenuous and full 
confession, and demand whether it be his own hand 
that is subscribed to the same?" In his interview 
with those lords, twelve in number, who in con- 
sequence of this resolution waited on him, he 
answered their questionings with the words : " lly 
lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech 
your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." 1 

He retired anew to his bed, full of compunction 
and overwhelmed with shame. The great seal was 

* Works, iv. p. 547. 



240 lord bacon's fall. 

necessarily demanded of him, and hiding his face 
with one hand, he delivered it back with the other, 
to the commissioners who had been appointed to 
receive it. 

Now came his formal degradation. His office as 
lord chancellor was sequestered. Then, by the 
officials of the House of Lords, he was summoned 
to receive in his person the judgment of his peers. 
These officials reported to have found him ill in bed, 
and "that he declared he feigned not this for an 
excuse ; for that, if able, he would willingly have 
obeyed the summons, but that it was wholly im- 
possible for him to attend." His judges, the peers, 
both humanely and courteously accepted his excuses. 
But they felt themselves bound to proceed to the 
sentence, even though he was absent : — 

"1. That the Lord Yiscount St. Alban should pay 
a fine of £40,000. 

"2. That he should be imprisoned in the Tower 
during the king's pleasure. 

"3. That he should be for ever incapable of holding 
any public office, place, or employment. 

"4. That he should never sit in parliament, nor 
come within the verge of the court." 1 

Extreme as this judgment was, amounting as it 
did to the most complete humiliation, we have no 
right to think that it was the dictate of any other 
principle than that of justice. Indeed, it should 
never be overlooked as national characteristics, that 

1 Works, iv. p. 549. May 3d., 1621. 



lokd bacon's fall. 24 i 

tenderness of feeling and lenity of punishment have 
ever distinguished a British judgment-seat, unless 
a Coke or a Jeffery may have had incidental influ- 
ence on popular, but transient, emotions. We cannot 
agree with some biographers of Lord Bacon, that 
the lords purposely passed a judgment on him, the 
very severity of which made its execution impos- 
sible. Not to speak c. the legislative straightfor- 
wardness of our country, especially in those acts 
which are preeminently national, it is obvious that 
the House of Lords has been generally distinguished 
as a calm, deliberative, not impulsive assembly ; an 
institute which, the author believes, is as important 
for the people as it is for the crown. 

Lord Bacon endured this sentence, but with those 
modifications which his sovereign could now safely 
exercise ; modifications which, probably, he brought 
to bear upon his deserted friend, simply from fear 
of the consequences of driving him to inconvenient 
exasperation. The imprisonment in the Tower was 
relieved after the second day ; the fine was remitted ; 
and the degraded and disgraced ex-chancellor was 
allowed to repair to his own paternal mansion at 
Gorhambury. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LOED BACON IN RETIREMENT ON HIS DISGRACE. 

He had been ill, as we have stated heretofore, during 
those investigations which wrought his humiliation 
and his ruin. After judgment had been passed upon 
him, that illness was fearfully aggravated. His 
vigour of mind, however, enabled him to rally, and on 
the thirty-first of May, 1621, he was found to be in 
a condition to meet the first form of his punishment, 
and to be borne as a prisoner to the Tower. "A 
barge was privately ordered to the stairs of York 
House, and the tide suiting early in the morning, so 
that London Bridge might be conveniently shot, he 
was quietly conducted by the sheriff of Middlesex to 
the Traitor's Gate, and there, with the warrant for 
his imprisonment, delivered to the lieutenant of the 
Tower." 1 By this arrangement he was spared a 
painful ordeal, for his judges allowed him to be 
transported to his cell so as to escape observation 
But what, in addition to his own individual griefs, 
must he not have suffered when he crossed its moat ! 

1 Campbell, ii. p. 407. 



BACON EN' EETIEEAEENT. 243 

TVithin those avails had groaned and died men, the 
incarceration of some of whom, the tortures of others, 
had been the results of either his own weak collusion 
with the despotism of the crown, or of his own 
personal adjudication. His first act, after he had 
reposed awhile upon the kind couch which the 
authorities had considerately ordered for him, was to 
write to Buckingham thus : — 

" Good my lord, 

"Procure the warrant for my discharge this day. 
Death, I thank God, is so far from being unwelcome to m 
I have called for it (as Christian resolution would permit) any 
time these two months. But to die before the time of his 
majesty's grace, and in this disgraceful place, is even the worst 
that could be ; and when I am dead, he is gone that was always 
in one tenor a true and perfect servant to his master, and one 
that was never author of any immoderate, no, nor unsafe, no, 
(I will say it) nor unfortunate counsel, and one that no temp- 
tation would ever make other than a trusty, and honest, and 
Christ-loving friend to your lordship ; and (howsoever I acknow- 
ledge the sentence just, and for reformation sake fit) the ju 
chancellor that hath been in the five changes since Sir Nicholas 
Bacon's time. God bless and prosper your lordship, whatsoever 
becomes of me. 

"Tour lordship's true friend, Uving and dying, 

" Francis S t - Alea2,-. 
« Tower, 31«-Jfeft 1621." 

This letter is a study for the Christian moralist. 
First of all, when Lord Bacon avows his distaste with 
life, his wish for death, a merely common reasoner 
upon the natural action of the passions of the heart 



244 BACON IN EETIEEMENT. 

may think himself able to account for it. Then, too, 
the reader of Holy Scripture may find recalled to 
him the words of Job : " Wherefore is light given to 
him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in 
soul : which long for death, but it cometh not ; and 
dig for it more than for hid treasures ; which rejoice 
exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the 
grave ?"* Eut these were the longings of an unholy 
impatience into which even Job was betrayed. The 
right Christian feeling under such circumstances, 
especially when they have been caused by sin, should 
be to desire life, in order to repentance and faith in 
Christ, and that, by the grace of God, the future 
might be spent in "works meet for repentance." 

And further: how sadly significant of a soul 
humbled merely by a sense of shame, not by a godly 
sorrow for guilt, are the allusions in this letter to 
the disgracefulness of the spot in which he might 
have to meet death ! as if that could, for a moment, 
enter into the calculation of any mind really awake 
to the absorbing consequences in prospect, and really 
intent upon the attainment of " the forgiveness of 
sins!" 

And further: it were difficult to find a more 
striking instance of a soul striving to answer con- 
science by self-righteous palliation. Lord Bacon — in 
the face of the judgment of his country, in the face 
of his own confessions- — calls himself "a true and 
perfect servant;" as "never author of any immode- 

i Job iii. 20-22. 



BAC0X IX RETIKEMKNT. 245 

rate, no, nor unsafe, no, nor unfortunate counsel;" 
as a "Christ-loving friend;" as "the justest chan- 
cellor" since his father's time! Oh, would that, 
instead of these proud self-defences, he had simply 
smitten his breast and cried, " God be merciful to me 
a sinner!" 

It was at this moment, when Lord Bacon had 
reached the nadir of his disgrace, that the prince of 
Wales (afterward Charles i.) showed that delicate 
sympathy with fallen greatness, and that charity 
of heart, which should go far to redeem many of his 
subsequent errors. He seems to have been a perfect 
contrast to his royal ifather in delicacy of sentiment 
and language ; in generous appreciation of the noble 
qualities of others ; in true taste for science and the 
arts ; in chivalry ; in courage ; in everything save an 
egregious estimate of his prerogative, and a moral 
obliquity about the means by which that prerogative 
was to be sustained. He used his powerful influence 
on behalf of the broken- spirited ex-chancellor, on a 
parent with whom no influence whatever should 
have been necessary in the cause of pity for a man 
whose genius had ennobled his reign, and whose 
degradation was the result of sins, many of which he 
had committed chiefly for his monarch. Whilst the 
councillors of the crown dared not, though they 
wished it, to advise his majesty to liberate the 
imprisoned, Prince Charles gallantly came forward, 
and was successful. And though we are behind but 
few in the most severe regrets at his conduct when 



246 bacoit nsr retirement. 

upon the throne, we would beg our readers, in their 
comprehensive estimate of the doings of this unhappy 
sovereign, to remember the fact before us. Had he 
not thus generously interfered, that spirit which is 
the intellectual glory of Great Britain would have 
lost its lustre, and gone out amidst the fetid vapours 
of the Tower. We should have lost perhaps its most 
sunny irradiation; above all, we should have lost 
those tears through which (and we hope against 
hope) its very brightness refracted a rainbow of holy 
peace with the world, and with his God. 

Lord Bacon's acknowledgments to the young 
prince are very affecting. # 

u It may please your highness, 

" When I call to mind how infinitely I am bound 
to your highness, that stretched forth your arm to save me 
from a sentence ; that took hold of me to keep me from being 
plunged deep in a sentence ; that hath kept me alive in your 
gracious memory and mention since the sentence ; pitying ins 
as I hope I deserve, and valuing me far above that I can 
deserve ; I find my words almost as barren as my fortunes, to 
express unto your highness the thankfulness I owe ; therefore, 
I can but resort to prayers to Almighty God to clothe you with 
his most rich and precious blessing, and likewise joyfully to 
meditate upon those he hath conferred upon you already ; in 
that he hath made you to the king your father, a principal part 
of his safety, contentment, and continuance : in yourself so 
judicious, accomplished, and graceful in all your doings, with 
more virtues in the buds (which are the sweetest) than have 
been known in a young prince of long time ; with the realm so 
well beloved, so much honoured, as it is men's daily observation 
how nearly you approach to his majesty's perfections; how 
every day you exceed yourself; how, compared with other 



BACON LN* EETTRE^ENT. 247 

young princes which God hath ordained to be young at this 
time, you shine amongst them ; they rather setting off your 
religious, moral, and natural excellencies, than matching them, 
though you be but a second person. These and such like 
meditations I feed upon, since I can yield your highness no 
other retribution. And for myself I hope, by the assistance of 
God above, of whose grace and favour I have had extraordinary 
signs and effects during my afflictions, to lead such a life in the 
last acts thereof, as whether his majesty employs me, or whether 
I live to myself, I shall make the world say that I was not 
unworthy such a patron. 

"I am much beholden to your highness's worthy servant, 
Sir John Vaughan, the sweet air and loving usage of whose 
house hath already much revived my languishing spirits; I 
beseech your highness thank him for me. God ever preserve 
and prosper your highness. 

" Your highness' s most humble and 
most bounden servant, 

" 1 June, 1621. "F tt - S T - Albany"' 1 

From this letter, it may be gathered that Prince 
Charles had not only shown his friendship for the suf- 
ferer after he became a captive, but had, previously 
to his condemnation, exerted himself, though fruit- 
lessly, to prevent it. Lord Bacon was, in con- 
sequence, detained only two days in the Tower, and 
was allowed to repair to the beautiful villa of Sir John 
Yaughan, an officer in the household of the prince. 

One might have expected that this kindly and 
unhoped-for retreat, after so momentous and humi- 
liating a crisis, would have been spent, and for a long 
time, in thoughts too retrospective, too penitential, 

1 Works, v. p. 553. 



248 BACOJT IN" RETIREMENT. 

and in their influence upon his future purposes too 
lowly and too self- distrustful, to allow the presence 
of ambition for one second. If he had felt, as he 
ought to have felt, he would have shunned for ever 
the reintroduction of his name to public notice, save 
when it was an inevitable condition of his promoting, 
and in the worthiest sense, the benefit of the com- 
monwealth. This would have been one result of a 
right repentance. We grieve to say, that he was no 
sooner saved from the brink which had been so pre- 
cipitous, than he began to cast his eyes about him for 
his future and worldly-minded projects. The careful 
student of the human heart will, almost instinctively, 
perceive how little this can consist with "the broken 
and contrite spirit," which must, as a necessity of 
nature, shun notoriety, much less seek it. But to 
this he had not attained; and it can be known to 
"the Searcher of hearts" only, whether, in after 
days, he became, though a slow, yet a willing disciple 
in a school, at the antipodes of that in which he 
had become the master. 

Surely it was now the time, if ever there was a 
time, in which he could have wholly satisfied his 
large soul, by that entire seclusion from public agita- 
tion, after which he had so uniformly and so earnestly 
been panting. Still, moral justice must hesitate as 
to whether or no he was anxious to repair back to all 
that tumult of life, of the vanity of which he had 
been made so ruefully conscious, simply with the hope 
that his future career might, by its self-denial and 



BACON IN EETIHE^IENT. 249 

honest exactitude and equity, redeem the delinquen- 
cies of the past. That he was resolved, if possible, 
to combine both the continuation of his vast intel- 
lectual purposes with the reattainment of political 
greatness, will be evident from the following letters. 
It must be observed that they were written during 
his brief retreat at the villa of Sir John Yaughan. 

u TO THE KING. 

" It may please your most excellent majesty, 

" I humbly thank your majesty for my liberty, 
without which timely grant, any further grace would have come 
too late. But your majesty, that did shed tears in the begin- 
ning of my trouble, will, I hope, shed the dew of your grace 
and goodness upon me in the end. Let me live to serve you, 
else life is but the shadow of death to 

*' Your majesty's most obedient servant, 

"F»- S T - Alban. 
"4 June, 1621." 

On the same day he writes 

"TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM. 

" My very good lord, 

" I heartily thank your lordship for getting me 

out of prison : and now my body is out, my mind nevertheless 

will be still in prison, till I may be on my feet to do his majesty 

and your lordship faithful service. Wherein your lordship, by 

the grace of God, shall find that my adversity hath neither 

spent nor pent my spirits. God prosper you. 

" Your lordship's most obliged friend 

and faithful servant, 

" Fk. S T - Alban. » 
"■LJune, 1621." 

1 Works, v. p. 553. 



250 BACON IN RETIREMENT. 

To the Count Gondomar, on the sixth of June, he 
writes : — 

"Now indeed both my age, the state of my fortune, and 
also that my genius, which I have hitherto so parsimoniously 
satisfied, call me, as I depart from the theatre of public affairs, 
to devote myself to letters ; to marshal the intellectual actors of 
the present, and to help those of future time. Perchance that 
will be my honour ; and I may pass the remainder of my life as 
if in the vestibule of a better one." l 

Eow it cannot be questioned that these letters — so 
remarkably irreeoncileable in their spirit and purpose, 
written too at a moment of such critical escape, that 
then, if ever, the singleness of intention was to be 
expected — -display a most painful oscillation of moral 
character* Of that grave defect in Lord Bacon we 
have had too many instances, but never so seriously 
conclusive an one as the present. There may have 
been, doubtless there were, a thousand reasons for his 
desire to reenter on political life ; but we cannot forego 
the recollection that he had made a public confession, 
as a defaulter, before the highest tribunal of his 
country; and it would have been more consonant 
with the views which we have of "godly sorrow, " 
if he had courted solitude for every reason ; sustained, 
as he was, against that ennui of solitude which is 
so repellent to most men, in his not only having 

i This is, of course, a free translation of his own words, in his Latin 
letter: "Me vero jam vocat et setus, et fortuna, atque etiam genius 
meus, cui adhuc satis morose satisfeci, ut excedens e theatro rerum 
civiliurn Uteris me dedam, et ipsos actores instruam, et posteritati ser- 
viam. Id mini fortasse nonori erit, et degain tanquam. in atriis vitse 
melioris." Works, vi. p. 287. 



BACON IN EETIBEMENT. 251 

resources, but purposes, for which that solitude was 
essential. 

He was, meanwhile, though so ambitious in his 
thoughts and refined in his sensibilities, to be ob- 
noxious to another but more degrading order of 
influences. He was yielding his mighty heart, 
alternately, to the voices of power and of science; 
but in the midst of this dalliance, such as had never 
before, perhaps, been played by any human soul, the 
voice of his creditors was heard; and that voice, 
from its very dissonance, was audible. Bacon, in the 
midst of griefs, was compelled to listen to the com- 
paratively trivial, but instant authority of other 
claims. He was in ruinous and indefensible debt. 

He was no sooner enlarged from the Tower than 
his creditors beset him; and with, possibly, an 
honest purpose of obtaining the facility of being 
on the spot for arranging his affairs, he besought 
leave to remove from the country to York House, his 
own London house. There was still remaining to 
him his faithful secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys; and, 
through him, he applied to the crown for the per- 
mission. In this case the good offices of the prince 
of Wales were useless. His petition was refused, 
on the ground that he had been condemned " not to 
come within the verge of the court." He was then 
ordered to retire to Gorhambury, and not to leave it 
until his majesty's pleasure. 

This unnecessary severity in king James would be 
difficult to explain, did we not know that both the 



252 BACON IN EETIEEMENT. 

king and Buckingham had, from some short time 
before Lord Bacon's impeachment, come under the 
influence of a high ecclesiastical functionary, Wil- 
liams, who was successively dean of Westminster, 
then his lordship's successor as lord keeper of the 
great seal, then bishop of Lincoln, and, finally, 
archbishop of York. As the now lord keeper, it 
was his policy to keep his disgraced predecessor out 
of sight. Before this he had most astutely, it may be 
hoped not maliciously, advised his sovereign to leave 
the lord chancellor as a solitary, unbefriended victim: 
and we shall, hereafter, have to remark upon various 
sinister influences which he exerted upon the re- 
awakening energies of Lord Bacon. 

Again, we must say, we should, for the sake of 
his dignity, have rejoiced if he had yielded himself, all 
genially, to the retreat and associations of his elegant 
and learned seat at Gorhambury. But, afresh, his 
aspirations after a public neighbourhood and all its 
probable chances, made him wretched and restless. 

" TO THE MARQUIS OP BUCKINGHAM. 

" My very good lord, 

" I thank God I am come very well to Gorham- 
bury, whereof I thought your lordship would be glad to hear 
sometimes. My lord, I wish myself by you in this stirring 
world, not for any love to place or business, for that is almost 
gone with me, but for my love to yourself, which can never 
cease in 

" Your lordship's most obliged friend, and true servant, 

" F R - S T - Alban. » 
1 Works, v. p. 557. 



BACON 1ST KETIEEMENT. 253 

"Being now out of use, and out of sight, I recommend 
myself to your lordship's love and favour, to maintain me in 
his majesty's grace and good intention." 

To this there followed several piteous letters to 
the king, and one to the prince of Wales ; at last, as 
a last and almost hopeless movement, he addressed 
the House of Lords thus : — 

"I am old, weak, ruined, in want, a very subject of pity. 
My only suit to your lordships is, to show me your noble favour 
towards the release of my confinement, to me, I protest, worse 
than the Tower. There I could have company, physicians, 
conference with my creditors and friends about my debts, and 
the necessities of my estate, helps for my studies, and the works 
I have in hand. Here I live upon the sword point of a sharp 
air, endangered as I go abroad, dulled if I stay within, solitary 
and comfortless, without company, banished from all opportuni- 
ties to treat with any to do myself good, and to help out my 
wrecks ; and that which is one of my greatest griefs, my wife, 
that hath been no partaker of my offending, must be paraker 

of this misery of my restraint Herein your lordships 

shall do a work of charity and nobility ; you shall do me good ; 
you shall do my creditors good ; and, it may be, do posterity 
good, if out of the carcass of dead and rotten greatness, as 
out of Samson's lion, there may be honey gathered for the use 
of future times." 1 

These prayers so pathetic in themselves, and 
coming from lips that had for so many years 
charmed senates, advised a monarch, advocated or 
confirmed laws, and promulgated a new constitution 
to the world of science, must touch the very core of 
the heart of pity. But although they may have 

1 Works, vi. p. 294. 



254 BACON IN RETIREMENT. 

drawn tears from the sovereign, and shamed Buck- 
ingham into a few impulsive efforts to befriend the 
suppliant ; though they did find a generous response 
in the bosom of the prince of Wales; though the 
house of peers were nobly anxious to save a fallen 
brother from being trampled on ; yet high reasons of 
state-consideration for the public clamour, and chiefly, 
the insidious intrigues of Bishop Williams (the lord 
keeper), rendered them fruitless. He was still de- 
tained in a species of imprisonment at Gorhambury, 
till the spring of the following year. 

He was now, most certainly, reduced to urgent 
straits for money. What property he had was se- 
questered by the heavy fine which had been pro- 
nounced upon him. His creditors increased in the 
number and sternness of their demands. He was 
driven to confess in a letter to Buckingham : " I have 
lived hitherto upon the scraps of my former fortunes; 
and I shall not be able to hold out longer. There- 
fore I hope your lordship will now, according to the 
loving promises and hopes given, settle my poor for- 
tunes, or rather my being." To the prince of Wales, 
he wrote : "My humble suit to your highness, that 
I may be thought on for means to subsist." To the 
king : "I have been the keeper of your seal, and 
am now your beadsman. Let your own royal heart, 
and my noble friend, speak the rest." 

To judge rightly of the conduct of Lord Bacon at 
this moment, we must ask — Had he any other plan to 
adopt, in order both to obtain a prospect of honestly 



LACO^" EN" EETEREMEXT. 25 5 

meeting his obligations, and to provide for the posi- 
tive wants of his household ? If he had not, much 
of the scorn which history has thrown around his 
dejection and his subserviency, ought to have been 
withheld, and ought now to be withdrawn. The 
hands of government were upon his property for the 
fine of £40,000 ; he had lost all his former lucrative 
offices; his estate was most heavily burdened, the 
weight of which we shall perceive hereafter. There 
were now awakened within him those feelings of 
pecuniary responsibility which had been lulled asleep 
during the fascination of past years. He never had 
been, as he ought to have been, as every man among 
us ought to be, alive to the moral significance which 
attaches itself to all money transactions ; but he was 
now beginning to perceive it, and to feel anxiety 
lest the shame of overlooking it should be added 
to other degradations of his name. If then, amidst 
the weakness attendant on his lost self-respect, 
he somewhat pusiHaiiimously contended with this 
new peril, and availed himself of those forms of con- 
flict with it which a less self-reproached man would 
have disdained, let us not consider him as beyond 
the pale of those laws of our human nature which 
charitably admit the struggles of the impotent, and 
which forbid us to cast them into ridicule. 

We do not say this with the intent to show that 
Lord Bacon ever became fully conscious of his duty 
on this point, important as it was. It appears to us 
that, from his early manhood until his death, even 



256 BACON IN RETIEE3IENT. 

in his last testament, there was a strange oversight 
of the laws of pecuniary rectitude. It was but a few 
years after his father's death that he became an 
inmate of the debtor's jail, and that alone must 
have done rude violence to the delicacy of his 
moral texture. And throughout his more prosperous 
days, even when his income was large and always 
rapidly increasing, he seems to have proportion- 
ately exceeded it. It matters not, as a question of 
virtue, whether or no his expenditure was lavish 
from a love of display, or from a spirit of cordial 
partnership in enjoyment with those who were 
around him. He was ever in pecuniary difficulties. 
Those difficulties as constantly laid him open to 
temptations to seize upon every possible facility for 
extrication. They also made a high sense of honour 
impossible. And after our most anxious, almost 
reverential, desire to find out less criminatory rea- 
sons for his numerous failings, we feel compelled 
to attribute to his pressure for money, much of 
his mean canvassing for promotion during the reign 
of queen Elizabeth ; much of his false play in the 
desertion of his friend Lord Essex; much of his 
guilty collusion with the acts of king James and 
Lord Buckingham; much of his ruinous receipt of 
gifts in the court of justice; much of that pusil- 
lanimity which we are now more immediately re- 
cording; and much of that profusion in the midst of 
poverty, which we shall have to record hereafter. 
What a solemn warning to us all, and especially 



BACON IN RETIREMENT. 257 

to the young candidate for success in life and for 
"a good name, which is better than great riches/' 
that many of the follies and crimes, and much of 
the degradation of this noble genius, may be at- 
tributed to his want of financial exactitude and 
uprightness. It may be called one of the minor 
vices, but it has often asserted its fearful energy, 
both in public and in private life, by its sapping the 
most exalted virtues. 

Lord Bacon was, at length, successful in obtaining 
a release from his rural imprisonment at Gorham- 
bury, and the king issued a permit to him to repair 
to London. Buckingham had triumphed over Bishop 
Williams, and had fulfilled his promise: "I will 
move his majesty to take commiseration of your long 
imprisonment, which, in some respects, both you 
and I have reason to think harder than the Tower ; 
you for the help of physic, your parley with your cre- 
ditors, your conference for your writings and studies, 
dealing with friends about your business; and I 
for this advantage, to be sometimes happy in visiting 
and conversing with your lordship, whose company 
I am desirous to enjoy." 1 

It is not necessary for us to extract the excited 
language with which he thanked Lord Buckingham 
and the king, for this amelioration of his punish- 
ment. Some ancient feelings of good-will towards 
his miserable ex-chancellor, seemed to have returned 
to the bosom of the monarch ; for, by his express 

i Works, v. p. 561. 



258 BACON IN EETIEEMENT. 

authority, the whole of the heavy fine was remitted; 
a pension of £1200 a year was assigned to him; 
and he was allowed to draw an annual sum of £600 
from the Alienation office. By this gracious arrange- 
ment he became, with the aid of a rental of £700 
from his own estate, in the receipt of £2500 a year, 
a large income for that period. 

Further : as another proof of his gradual restora- 
tion to the sovereign's favour, he received a signed 
warrant for a pardon, which was only qualified, lest 
its entireness should challenge the indignation of 
the country. But even this degree of royal for- 
giveness would have escaped him, but for the 
resolution of the king. For no sooner did Bishop 
"Williams learn that it was contemplated, than he 
gave it his most strenuous opposition. It happened 
that, when Lord Bacon's heavy fine was remitted, 
his property was assigned to trustees for his benefit. 
History has no right to say that this measure was 
obtained by Lord Bacon for the purpose of de- 
frauding his creditors : it must, first, assume that 
his lordship sought for such protection as would 
enable him, with equanimity, to adjudicate their 
claims ; and, secondly, examine whether he honestly 
availed himself of the advantage. "We shall see. 

But before any human being had a right to 
pronounce upon the motives of this arrangement, 
and while it was, as it is still, anything but clear 
that Lord Bacon had been concerned in making 
it, Bishop Williams, in defiance of the charity 



BACON IN RETIREMENT. 259 

which "hopeth all things," wrote to Lord Bucking- 
ham the following : — 

u The pardoning of his fine is much spoken against, not 
for the matter (for no man objects to that), but for the manner, 
.which is full of knavery, and a wicked precedent. For by this 
assignation of his fine he is protected from all his creditors, 
which I dare say was neither his majesty's nor your lordship's 
meaning. His lordship was too cunning for me. He passed his 
fine (whereby he hath deceived his creditors) ten days before 
he presented his pardon to the seal. ,, 1 

As we have said already, the moral point of the 
question about this movement must, in some measure, 
be tested by the way in which Lord Bacon thence- 
forth used the advantages which it gave him, and 
that must come under our notice hereafter. But the 
historical point demands our instant investigation. 
And as this is one of the most serious crises of Lord 
Bacon's character; as one, too, which has received 
but little consideration from the historical or 
biographical writer, we must enter upon it some- 
what largely. For, if it can be proved that the 
ex-chancellor, notwithstanding all the solemn warn- 
ings that he had received of the sin and danger of 
improbity, did nevertheless lend himself intention- 
ally to a deed, which was to give him power to live 
in luxury, and meanwhile to defraud his creditors, 
then our faintest hopes that he now strove to be 
upright must be given up. 

In the absence of other documents, we must 

1 Campbell's Lives, ii. p. 411. 



260 BACON IN EETIREMENT. 

content ourselves with those which follow; and 
must, at the same time, incidentally advert to the 
character of the lord keeper, Bishop "Williams, his 
successor and accuser. 

In the Cotton library, Titus Book vii, we find — 

" ' ..ANT OF PARDON TO THE VISCOUNT ST. ALB AN, UNDER THE 
PRIVY SEAL. 

"A special pardon granted unto Francis, Viscount St. 
Alban, for all felonies done and committed against the common 
laws and statutes of this realm ; and for all offences of praemu- 
nire; and for all misprisions, riots, &c, with the restitution of 
all his lands and goods forfeited by reason of the premises ; 
except out of the same pardon all treasons, murders, rapes, 
incest ; and except also all fines, imprisonments, penalties, and 
forfeitures, adjudged against the said Viscount St. Alban, by a 
sentence lately made to the parliament. Testo Eege apud 
Westm. 17 die Octob. anno Regni sui 19. 

" Per lettre de privato sigillo." 

Now it would be as presumptuous as it would be 
remote from our wish, to enact the high function of 
the lawyer in a judgment upon the terms of this 
pardon. To some others it may appear, that the 
verbal contention of the bar is unnecessary: we 
regard it as an invaluable safeguard to man's civil 
rights, which is only imperfect because all human 
language is imperfect. And one might as reasonably 
try to smile down the qualifying terms which, as 
moralists, we imperfectly employ in making moral 
distinctions, as try to smile down the precautionary 
term| of our legal phraseology. Nevertheless, we 
must say that, looking at the words of this document, 



BACON IN HEirREilENT. 261 

we think it so casuistic, that we fear some subtle 
adversary must have prepared it. Had not Bishop 
Williams protested against even its concession, we 
might have feared that it was the product of his 
jealous ingenuity: for with this fault he was, in 
other cases than that of Lord Bacon, sadly charge- 
able. This document fails to annul Bacon's con- 
demnation by the parliament. It goes not to 
neutralize the penalties which that parliament had 
inflicted. It is, as far as a civilian may dare to 
pronounce, a deed which left Lord Eacon open to 
a future trial, far more than the royal patent left 
Sir Walter Ealeigh. Some years before, Sir Edward 
Coke and Sir Francis Eacon had waived that patent 
with contempt. 

Historic truth demands our especial guardianship 
of those who, in their misfortunes, could not guard 
themselves; and therefore we must treat Eishop 
Williams' conduct towards his fallen predecessor 
with honest firmness. He excepted against this 
act of royal mercy. Why? His secret reasons we 
have already adduced in his letter to Lord Buck- 
ingham. Why did he not assume the position 
which the commonest shrewdness would have shown 
him to be a right reason, for remodelling and, in- 
evitably, for delaying it ? Because he was disin- 
genuous ; for, at the very moment that he was, 
with the utmost malice, conveying the worst sug- 
gestion against Lord Bacon's honour, he thup writes 
to him : — 



262 BACON IN BETIEEMENT. 

"My very good lord, 

" Having perused a privy seal, containing a pardon 
for your lordship, and thought seriously thereupon, I find that 
the passing of the same, the assembly in parliament so near 
approaching, cannot hut be much prejudicial to the service of 
the king, to the honour of my lord of Buckingham, to that com- 
miseration which otherwise would be had of your lordship's 
present estate, and especially to my judgment and fidelity. I 
have ever affectionately loved your lordship's many and most 
excellent good parts and endowments; nor had ever cause to 
disafFect your lordship's person : so as no respect in the world, 
beside the former considerations, could have drawn me to add 
the least affliction or discontentment unto your lordship's pre- 
sent fortune. May it therefore please your lordship to suspend 
the passing of this pardon, until the next assembly be over and 
dissolved ; and I will be then as ready to seal it as your lordship 
to accept of it ; and, in the meantime, undertake that the king 
and my lord admiral shall interpret this short delay as a service 
and respect, issuing wholly from your lordship; and rest, in all 
other offices whatsoever, 

" Your lordship's faithful servant, 

"Jo. Lincoln, Elect. Custos Sigilli. l 

u Westminster College, Oct, 18, 1621/ ' 

This letter is utterly irreconcileable with even 
those general laws of courtesy which, in all ages, 
have been recognised. It was untruthful and per- 
fidious. We say this, recollecting that we are bound 
to be as just to the character of Bishop Williams, 
or that of any other man, as to that of the humbled 
Lord Bacon. And we have more than political 
justice, from this conduct of his accuser, to warrant 

l Works, vi. p. 293. 



BACON IN EETIEEMENT. 263 

us in the belief, that the charge against the latter 
was the insinuation of that coward jealousy which 
is always false. Why did not this lord keeper, 
authorized both by his spiritual and civil authority, 
boldly tax the culprit with this crime ? Or why, 
if the supposed conditions of society restrained 
him from so doing, did he volunteer to write a 
letter such as the above, from which no reader, 
however suspicious he might be, could infer aught 
but the most reverential cordiality and friend- 
ship? "We are aware that, in writing thus about 
Bishop Williams, 1 we are unveiling the sin of one 
who afterwards bore himself so nobly against Laud ; 
but we must be first faithful to truth, and then we 
may be indignant in our anxiety to protect the fallen. 
Lord Bacon seems to have been, unwontedly for 
him, suspicious when he had read this letter, and, 
unwontedly for him, cautious in the way in which 
he answered it. 

"to the lord keeper. 
" My very good lord, 

" I know the reasons must appear to your lord- 
ship many and weighty, which should move you to stop the 
king's grace, or to dissuade it; and, somewhat the more in re- 
spect of my person, being, I hope, no unfit subject for noble 

1 John Williams, born in 1582, distinguished for his attainments, had 
been chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Egerton. Bacon, on his obtaining 
the great seal, had offered to continue him in the same office, but he 
declined. He was afterwards made Dean of Westmin-ter, 1620, re- 
ceived the seals on the disgrace of Lord Bacon, and was made Bishop of 
Lincoln. He attended king James on his death-bed. At last, degraded 
by Charles i. by the instigation of Buckingham, his former patron, he 
was condemned, by the star chamber, to a fine of £10,000, and an im- 
prisonment during his majesty's pleasure. Finally, when restored to 
favour, he was made Archbishop of York, 1641. 



264 BACON IN EETIEEMEST. 

dealing. The message I received by Mr. Meautys did import 
inconvenience in the form of pardon; your lordship's last 
letter, in the time ; for, as for the matter, it lay so fair for his 
majesty's and my lord of Buckingham's own knowledge, as I 
conceive your lordship doth not aim at that. My affliction hath 
made me understand myself better, and not worse ; yet loving 
advice, I know, helps well. Therefore I send Mr. Meautys 
to your lordship, that I might reap so much fruit of your lord- 
ship's professed good affection, as to know in some particular 
fashion, what it is that your lordship doubteth or disliketh, that 
I may the better endeavour your satisfaction, or acquiescence, if 
there be cause." 1 

These intrigues of Bishop "Williams were cut short 
by a peremptory order from the king, that the 
pardon, equivocal as it was, should be sealed and 
sent. Still the permission given to Lord Bacon to 
remain in London was limited, and we again find 
him at Gorhambury, as dissatisfied with his lenient 
exile as ever. Some months which ensued were 
diversified by his endeavouring to engage Lord 
Digby's influence with the king on his behalf; by 
Lord Buckingham's resentment at his seeking the 
protection of any other than himself; by their 
mutual correspondence upon this misunderstanding, 
and mutual negotiations about the transfer of York 
House. But it is not necessary to give the details, 
nor to say of the two last circumstances more than 
that they betrayed a tendency to estrangement on 
the part of Lord Buckingham, called forth earnest 
protests from Lord Bacon, and ended in a supineness 
in the former to aid the latter for the future. 

i Works, vi. p. 294. 



CHAPTER XV. 

LOPJ) bacon's last days akd death. 

The life of Lord Bacon was prolonged for nearly five 
years after the events with which we closed the last 
chapter, viz. from October, 1621, to April, 1626. 
But although, in spite of his many other most urgent 
prayers for restoration to official life, he had to pass 
this period in enforced retirement, its records are of 
the most instructive interest. Perhaps they are the 
most important of his whole career, for forming a 
just estimate of what was substantive in his character; 
for hitherto he had been " walking in a vain show ; " 
he had been more or less factitious; the perpetual 
self-conflict between his love of contemplation and 
his ambition in public life, had divided the integrity 
of his mind, and made him alternate between the 
most opposite impulses; above all, his innumerable 
and varied worldly projects had postponed those 
religious claims, the value of which he had been 
taught in early life, but which he had lamentably 
overlooked, though, it would seem from his writings, 
never had abjured. 



2C6 bacoh's last days. 

One could not have been surprised if the depth of 
his fall had done rude violence to his intellectual 
faculties; if bewildered with shame, he had never 
again felt able to concentrate his attention upon any- 
thing ; if the degrading cares of his debts had made 
him spiritless. But not four days had transpired 
since his condemnation and imprisonment, and while 
his future was still ominously dark, when we find him 
in his letter to Count Gondomar planning his literary 
pursuits. 1 During the first year of his ostracism, he 
composed an historical work, "The Life and Reign 
of Henry vii." He finished it at Gorhambury, 
dedicated it to the prince of Wales, in gratitude for 
his generous efforts to obtain his pardon, 2 and sent a 
copy to the queen of Bohemia, with a letter, strongly 
showing the feelings of a disgraced minister : " Time 
was, I had honour without leisure ; and now I have 
leisure without honour." 3 

It is not our purpose to enter on a critical estimate 
of Lord Bacon's writings ; it will, therefore, be enough 
for us to remark that this work is considered some- 
what unworthy of his name. This was to be expected, 
for, notwithstanding his strong wall, his energies could 
not as yet have rallied. Nevertheless, his applica- 
tion was untiring. In this same year, he composed 
his unfinished dialogue, " An Advertisement touching 
an Holy War," which he inscribed to Bishop Andrews; 
and he published the portion of his " Historia Katu- 
ralis et Experimentalis," entitled " De Ventis," 

1 Works, vi. p. 287. 2 Ibid, v. p. 4. 3 Ibid, vi. p. 328. 



bacon's last days. 267 

which is arranged as a portion of the third part of the 
Instauratio Magna, The next year, 1623, he pub- 
lished in Latin his work, "De Dignitate et Augmentis 
Scientiarum;" and also his "Historia Vitse et Mortis. " 
Various other writings, both in English and Latin, 
which he now composed, were not given to the world 
till after his death. But in 1625, besides the new 
and greatly enlarged edition of his Essays, a very 
small octavo volume, entitled " Apophthegms," once 
more gave public note, while he still lived, of the 
unabated activity of his mind and pen. 1 

Eawley, his most ancient biographer, speaking of 
these productions, says, without any exaggeration: 
"Nothing can give a more exalted idea of the fruit- 
fulness and vigour of his genius, than the number 
and nature of those writings. Under the discourage- 
ment of a public censure, broken in his health, 
broken in his fortunes, he enjoyed his retirement 
not above five years — a little portion of his time; 
yet he found means to crowd into it what might 
have been the whole business, and the glory too, of 
a long and fortunate life. Some of his former pieces 
he methodized and enriched; several new ones he 
composed, no less considerable for the greatness and 
variety of the arguments he treated, than for his 
manner of treating them. Nor are they works of 
mere erudition and labour, that require little else 
but strength of constitution and obstinate application : 

1 See Craik's "Bacon : his Writings and his Philosophy:" invaluable 
for its summary of the facts of the life, and its selection from the writings, 
of Lord Bacon. Vol. i. p. 118. 



268 bacon's last days. 

they are original efforts of genius and reflection, 
on subjects either new, or handled in a manner 
that makes them so. His notions he drew from his 
own fund ; and they were solid, comprehensive, 
systematical; the disposition of his whole plan 
throwing light and grace on all the particular parts. 
In considering every subject, he seems to have 
placed himself in a point of view so advantageous 
and elevated, that he could from thence discover 
a whole country round him, and mark out the 
several spots of it distinctly and with ease. These 
characters are equally due to the works in which 
he made some progress, and to those he could only 
attempt." x 

By a careful study of those Essays which had not 
appeared before the edition in 1625, most of which 
we may suppose him to have written during his 
retirement, we may obtain some insight into his 
moral interior at this period. They are entitled, "Of 
Eevenge," "Of Adversity," "Of Simulation and 
Dissimulation," " Of Envy," "Of Boldness," "Of 
Seditions and Troubles," " Of Travel," " Of Delays," 
"Of Innovations," "Of Suspicion," "Of Plantations," 
"Of Prophecies," "Of Masques and Triumphs," 
"Of Usury," "Of Building," "Of Gardens," "Of 
Anger," " Of the Vicissitudes of Things." To this 
may be added, "A Fragment of an Essay on Fame." 
Although these subjects are very various, ranging 
from the most important of our moral acts and emo- 

i Works, i. p. 54. 



bacon's LAST DATS. 269 

tions, to forms of conventional life, yet each of 
them is distinguished with a peculiar "ehiaro 
oseuro" spirit which we find but seldom in the 
Essays which he had written previously. They have 
more sobriety, more pathos; evince a stronger con- 
viction of the importance of self-control; the vanity 
of life; the necessity of truthfulness to God and 
man; the necessity of seclusion for self-knowledge; 
the advantages of adversity. It is from one of them, 
the fifth, the well-known and beautiful sentence is 
taken : " Certainly virtue is like precious odours, 
most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; 
for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity 
doth best discover virtue." 

But that relic of his pen which we value most of 
all, because it gives us a probable ground to believe 
that his soul was beginning to be awakened to the 
true spirit of the gospel, is a prayer, of the authen- 
ticity and date of which there can be no doubt. The 
devout Christian will, we are sure, read it with 
hopeful interest, though with qualified satisfaction ; 
and we trust that even the mind that withholds 
acquiescence in its spiritual assumptions and desires, 
will yet receive it reverentially. It is an address to 
God, uttered by one of the noblest, if not the noblest 
and most enlarged human intellects. And what 
makes it so singularly valuable is this : It contains 
that truth which this intellect had so long and so 
firmly received as a speculative theory, now at last 
possibly interpenetrated with life and emotion. Had 



270 bacon's last days. 

Lo ^>acon been an unbeliever up to the time of 
his j eat sorrows, then the suggestion might be plau- 
sible that this prayer was only the cry of pain 
which, from many incidental circumstances, assumed 
this form of utterance. But those of our readers 
who have accompanied us in our remarks upon his 
theology, will concede that either he was a hypocrite 
even in the religious conclusions of his intellect, or 
that what had been a sincere but inoperative con- 
viction, at length asserted its authority, and obtained 
a voice. 

" Most gracious Lord God, my merciful Father from my 
youth up, my Creator, my Eedeemer, my Comforter. Thou, 
Lord, soundest and searchest the depths and secrets of all 
hearts : thou acknowledgest the upright of heart : thou judgest 
the hypocrite : thou ponderest men's thoughts and doings as in 
a balance : thou measurest their intentions as with a line : 
vanity and crooked ways cannot be hid from thee. 

"Bemember, Lord, how thy servant hath walked before 
thee : remember what I have first sought, and what hath been 
principal in my intentions. I have loved thy assemblies . I 
have mourned for the divisions of thy church : I have delighted 
in the brightness of thy sanctuary. This vine which thy right 
hand hath planted in this nation, I have ever prayed unto thee, 
that it might have the first and the latter rain ; and that it 
might stretch her branches to the seas and to the floods. The 
state and bread of the poor and oppressed have been precious 
in mine eyes : I have hated all cruelty and hardness of heart : 
I have, though in a despised weed, procured the good of all 
men. If any have been my enemies, I thought not of them ; 
neither hath the sun almost set down upon my displeasure ; but 
I have been as a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness. 
Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much 



bacon's last days. 271 

more. I have sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens ; fe«t I 
have found thee in thy temples. 

u Thousands have "been my sins, and ten thousands my 1 ns- 
gressions ; but my sanctifications have remained with me nd 
my heart, through thy grace, hath been an unquenched coal 
upon thine altar. Lord, my strength, I have since my youth 
met with thee in all my ways ; by thy fatherly compassions, by 
thy comfortable chastisements, and by thy most visible provi- 
dence. As thy favours have increased upon me, so have thy 
corrections ; so as thou hast been always near me, Lord ; and 
ever as my worldly blessings were exalted, so secret darts from 
thee have pierced me ; and when I have ascended before men, 
I have descended in humiliation before thee. And now, when 
I thought most of peace and honour, thy hand is heavy upon me, 
and hath humbled me according to thy former loving-kindness ; 
keeping me still in thy fatherly school, not as a bastard, but as 
a child. Just are thy judgments upon me for my sins, which 
are more in number than the sands of the sea, but have no pro- 
portion to thy mercies. For what are the sands of the sea to 
the sea, 1 earth, heavens? And all these are nothing to thy 
mercies. Besides my innumerable sins, I confess before thee, 
that I am debtor to thee for the gracious talent of thy gifts and 
graces, which I have neither put into a napkin, nor put it, as I 
ought, to exchangers, where it might have made best profit, but 
misspent it in things for which I was least fit : so I may truly 
say, my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrim- 
age. Be merciful unto me, Lord, for my Saviour's sake, and 
receive me into thy bosom, or guide me in thy ways." 2 

"We grieve to see, that in some portions of this 
prayer the phraseology is sadly self-complacent, 
and therefore unbefitting utter humiliation before 
Grod. We do not, cannot defend it. Even the 
parallel cases in which Job and David recounted 

l Craik's Bacon, vol. i. p. 167. 2 Works, vol. ii. p. 489. 



272 bacon's last days. 

some of the features of their conduct will not justify, 
however much they may have suggested it. "My 
foot," said Job, "hath held his steps, his way have 
I kept, and not declined. Neither have I gone back 
from the commandment of his lips ; I have esteemed 
the words of his mouth more than my necessary 
food." 1 And David exclaimed : "Lord, my heart is not 
haughty, nor mine eyes lofty ; neither do I exercise 
myself in great matters, or in things too high for 
me." 2 We say such parallels as these may have 
suggested, but they do not justify those in the 
prayer before us. But it might be that Bacon 
intended them as humble appeals to his Omniscient 
Maker against the unmeasured charges which were 
heaped upon him by his enemies, some of w T hich 
were true, others unquestionably false. Or, even 
admitting their spiritual imperfection in the strongest 
sense, they are intermingled with confessions so 
thoughtfully comprehensive and so penitent, that 
we cannot withhold our hope that, in the best 
sense, the general animus of the prayer was that 
" of a broken and a contrite heart." Nevertheless, 
it gives us but qualified satisfaction. If Lord Bacon 
had never heard of the sacrifice and intercession of 
Christ, or if he had rejected them from his creed, he 
could not have more utterly ignored their existence 
and their infinite value to a guilty sinner, than he 
has done in this prayer, save when, at the very 
close, he pleads with God "for his Saviour's sake." 

1 Job xxiii. 11, 12. * Psalm cxxxi. 1. 



bacon's last days. 273 

Ve advert to this, not from thinking that any re- 
iteration of the name and merits of the Redeemer is, 
of itself, any proof of true Christian repentance ; but 
from the assurance which we feel that, where there 
-is true Christian repentance, such reiteration is 
inevitable. How can any soul that is earnest in its 
suit for pardon — that, from its very earnestness, seeks 
about for every presumption that it may possibly 
succeed — fail to dwell long, yea incessantly, upon the 
fact which it acknowledges ; namely, that Christ is 
" able to save them to the uttermost that come unto 
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter- 
cession for them!" Add to this, we must deplore 
many expressions which are scattered through this 
prayer; such as, "Remember, Lord, how thy 
servant hath walked before thee : remember what I 
have first sought, and what hath been principal in 
my intentions:" "If any have been my enemies, I 
thought not of them, neither hath the sun almost 
set down upon my displeasure ; but I have been as 
a dove, free from superfluity of maliciousness." 
Considerations such as these warrant us in the fear 
that, as yet, the suppliant was far from sufficiently 
aware of the spirituality of the divine law ; of his 
own flagrant breach of it ; and of his utter helpless- 
ness without the righteousness of Christ. 

We have said above, that this prayer gives us a 

probable ground to trust that his soul was heginning 

to be awakened to the true spirit of the gospel : if 

such was the fact, then, although he has confirmed 

s 



274 bacon's last days 

it by no records, we feel sure that in his later 
moments he abjured all such self- exculpations, and 
clung, with the tenacity of life, to the cross of Christ 
as the only hope set before him in the gospel. 

And should it be that any of our readers still 
maintain that the bitterest invectives against Lord 
Bacon have been deserved, we will nevertheless 
contend for it, as the sublime prerogative of the 
Holy Spirit, that by the shedding down the in- 
fluences of the gospel upon this sered and withered 
heart, he could have first fitted that heart as soil, and 
then made it productive of "the fruits of righte- 
ousness." If Christianity has not this renovating 
power; or if that renovating power is restricted 
only to the earliest moments of our consciousness, 
then the ultimate perfection of an inconceivable 
majority of men must be hopeless. 

By these references to the religious life of the 
five years of his retirement, we are far from pre- 
tending that Lord Bacon thoroughly, and for ever, 
abjured all those tastes and tendencies which dis- 
figured the career of his ambition. "We must mention 
some of their outbursts. They, however, are not 
such as to invalidate our hope in the honesty and 
truth of his repentance. They betray indeed a 
feverish impatience for public life; but the com- 
monest charity must trust, that he sought after it 
chiefly with the desire of redeeming his public 
character, by future exemplariness and patriotic 
devotion. There may have been also, and we believe 



BACONS LAST DAYS. 275 

there was, a desire for such emoluments as might 
help him to repay his creditors. Further, there 
was naturally at work that lingering attachment to 
ancient courses which, with a spirit of almost pro- 
phetic anticipation, he had described in his essay 
"Of Great Place." "It is a strange desire, to seek 
power and to lose liberty ; or to seek power over 
others, and to lose power over a man's self. The 
rising into place is laborious ; and by pains men 
come to greater pains ; and it is sometimes base ; 
and by indignities men come to dignities. The 
standing is slippery, and the regress is either a 
downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melan- 
choly thing. . . . Nay, retire men cannot when 
they would; neither will they when it were reason; 
but a/re impatient of privateness, even in age and sick- 
ness, which require the shadow : like old townsmen, that 
will he still sitting at their street door, though thereby 
they offer age to scorn''' 

He had made numerous though vain endeavours 
to obtain a personal interview with the king. This 
was wise ; for there was the highest probability that 
the sight of an ancient and faithful servant and that 
the very sound of his voice — which would have been 
irresistible in its pathos and prayers — could not but 
sway a master who was far from being personally 
unfriendly to him. But, partly through the con- 
siderations of sound policy, partly through the jealous 
animosity of Bishop Williams, and chiefly from the 
estrangement of the all-powerful Buckingham, this 



276 bacon's last days. 

boon was for a long time delayed. At length the last 
obstacle was removed. But before that, king James 
had received from him a letter so evidently heart- 
broken, that we cannot agree with those who charge 
it with pusillanimity. We cannot give it entire, for 
it is too long ; but its close may suffice to show its 
tenor and its spirit : — 

" Help me, dear sovereign lord and master, and pity me so 
far as that I, that have borne a bag, be not now in my age 
forced in effect to bear a wallet, and that I that desire to live by 
study, may not be driven to study to live I" 1 

Again : — 

" For now it is thus with me : I am a year and half old in 
misery : though I must ever acknowledge, not without some 
mixture of your majesty's grace and mercy : for I do not think 
it possible, that any one whom you once loved, should be 
totally miserable. Mine own means, through mine own impro- 
vidence, are poor and weak, little better than my father left me. 
The poor things that I have had from your majesty, are rather 
in question, or at courtesy. My dignities remain marks of 
your past favour, but burdens of my present fortune. The poor 
remnant which I had of my former fortune, in plate or jewels, 
I have spread upon poor men unto whom I owed, scarce leaving 
to myself a convenient subsistence. So as, to conclude, I must 
pour out my misery before your majesty, so far as to say, si 
deserts tu, perirnus" [if thou forsakest us, we perish.] 

Grief should be always sacred : it has not been in 
the case of Lord Bacon; for men are found who 
smile scornfully at this intellectual Solon, because 
sorrow dimmed his eyes with tears, and enfeebled his 

i Works, v. p. 566. 



bacon's last days. 277 

ancient limbs, and made his once eloquent and 
courageous tongue to play him false. 

At length his spirit was to be revived. "What 
animation must have lighted up his desponding 
features, when he read the following : — 

"My lord, 

" I have despatched the business your lordship 
recommended to me, which I send your lordship here enclosed, 
signed by his majesty ; and have likewise moved him for your 
coming to kiss his hand, which he is pleased you should do at 
Whitehall when he returneth next thither. In the meantime, 
I rest 

" Your lordship's faithful friend and servant, 

" G. Buckingham. l 
"Newmarket, 12'*- Nov., 1622." 

Bacon has left a memorial of the royal interview 
which followed. It opens with the words of exulting 
gratitude for the favour : "I may now in a manner 
sing nunc dimittis, 2 now I have seen you. Before 
methought I was scant in a state of grace, but in a 
kind of utter darkness. And, therefore, among other 
your mercies and favours, I do principally thank 
your majesty for this admission of me to kiss your 
hands." 

He then proceeded to acknowledge the king's kind- 
ness in enlarging him from the Tower, remitting his 
fine, issuing his general pardon and recommendation 
to the law officers respecting his debts. After this, 
he revealed his craving for employment thus : — 

" I have this further to say in the nature of an humble 
i Works, v. p. 575. 2 The Psalm of Simeon. 



278 bacon's last days. 

oblation ; for things once dedicated and vowed cannot lose their 
character, nor be made common. I ever vowed myself to your 
service. Therefore : 

"First, if your majesty do at any time think it fit, for your 
affairs, to employ me again publicly upon the stage, I shall so 
live and spend my time, as neither discontinuance shall disable 
me, nor adversity discourage me, nor anything that I shall do 
give any scandal or envy upon me. 

" Secondly, if your majesty shall not hold that fit ; yet, if it 
shall please you at any time to ask my opinion, or require my 
propositions privately by my lord marquis, or any of your 
counsellors that is my friend, touching any commission or 
business, , . . . I shall be glad to be a labourer or pioneer in 
your service. 

"Lastly and chiefly, because your majesty is an universal 
scholar, or rather master, and my pen . . . gained upon the 
world, your majesty would appoint me some task or literary 
province, that I may serve you calamo, if not consilio [with pen, 
if not by counsel.] 

" I know that I am censured of some conceit of mine ability 
or worth ; but I pray your majesty impute it to desire, possunt 
quia posse videntur " 1 

The rest of the memorandum 1 contains only some 
of those epigrammatical sentences and aphorisms 
which were so characteristic of his mind, and which 
he then employed in aid of his proposals to his 
sovereign. 

It does not appear that any definite advantage 
resulted from this audience. As to the first of Lord 
Bacon's proposals, it was as impossible as it would 
have been unfitting to instal him in any public func- 
tion. Of the second, king James did often and con- 

i Works, vi. p. 330. 
" They can conquor who believe they can." — Dryden, 



bacon's last days. 279 

fidingly avail himself. And in regard to the last, 
there are several interesting and characteristic remains 
of a correspondence between the monarch and the 
philosopher. 

About five months after, the provostship of Eton 
fell vacant, and he wistfully sought the appointment. 
But Buckingham, who anew showed him more con- 
stant kindness than he did to most who had become 
dependent on his smile, was absent in Spain. In his 
eagerness, he made direct application for it to the 
king as " a cell to retire into; " and, in addition, be- 
sought the good offices of Mr. Secretary Conway; 
and received the assurance of his majesty's most 
gracious acquiescence. It was then, again, that 
Bishop Williams, his successor as lord keeper, volun- 
teered his persecuting interposition. "Whatever may 
be thought of the wisdom of his advice, it was cruelly 
indelicate thus to thrust himself forward, in order to 
keep down one whose fall had been his own most 
undeserved rise. He impatiently wrote to Bucking- 
ham: "It will rest wholly with your lordship to 
name the man. It is somewhat necessary he be a 
good scholar ; but more that he be a good husband, 
and a careful manager, and a stayed man ; which no 
man can be, that is so much indebted as the lord of 
St. Alban's." 1 

Then he was perpetually mortified and irritated by 
his exclusion from parliament. Great and many as 
had been his successes at the bar, his triumphs in the 

1 Works, Ti. p. 341, Note. 



280 bacon's last days. 

senate had been among his earliest and most ennobling. 
He had, with an unparalleled mastery, been leader of 
the opposition; and afterwards, with equal power, 
had sustained the government in the House of Com- 
mons. In the House of Lords he had so increased 
his reputation as an orator, that Raleigh, the best 
judge of his day, declared that "Lord Salisbury was 
a great speaker, but a bad writer ; and Lord North- 
ampton was a great writer, but a bad speaker ; while 
Lord Bacon was equally excellent in speaking and 
writing." His mind was full to overflowing with 
the knowledge of the laws of his country and its 
international interests. Of them he could discourse 
with an almost dictatorial power. "What then must 
have been his feelings of humiliation as he found 
himself exiled from the parliamentary tribune, whilst 
the religious war raged in Bohemia, and the successes 
of Tilly and Spinola made the Protestant world 
vibrate with fear ,• whilst in that war the Palatine, 
the king's son-in-law, the husband of Bacon's friend, 
vainly stretched out his hands to beg aid from Eng- 
land ; whilst the house of Austria was bidding fair 
to seize upon European dominion ; whilst the inde- 
pendence of his country oscillated between the Spanish 
marriage and the French alliance ? Above all, what 
must he not have suffered whilst senatorial silence 
was imposed upon him, in that struggle which 
now commenced between the king and the Commons, 
and which only ceased upon the scaffold of king 
Charles ? 



bacon's LAST DATS. 281 

But now that Sir Edward Coke had directed his 
bitterness to other objects, Bishop Williams amply- 
supplied his place. The great talents of Lord Bacon 
haunted the new lord keeper ; and he did his utmost 
to extinguish them. Bacon could endure no longer. 
"I prostrate," he wrote, " myself at your majesty's 
feet; I, your ancient servant, now sixty-four years 
old in age, and three years five months old in misery. 
I desire not from your majesty means, nor place, nor 
employment; but only, after so long a time of expia- 
tion, a complete and total remission of the sentence 
of the upper house, to the end that blot of ignominy 
may be removed from me, and from my memory 
with posterity; that I die not a condemned man, 
but may be to your majesty, as I am to God, nova 
creatura [a new creature.] .... Look down, dear 

sovereign, upon me in pity This my most 

humble request granted, may make me live a year or 
two happily ; and denied, will kill me quickly." 1 

The king, at length, asserted his own indepen- 
dence, and immediately commanded the issue of " the 
full pardon of the whole sentence." And now he was 
free as the air, eligible for office, and secure of a 
return to his seat among his peers. 

From that day his health began rapidly to decline. 
This was evident, notwithstanding his indomitable 
devotion to his studies. It was during these days — 
months — of increasing exhaustion that, in addition to 
his steady pursuit of natural sciences, he commenced 

l Works, v. p. 533. 



282 bacon's last days. 

a " Digest of the Laws of England," and composed 
his "Considerations touching a "War with Spain, 
inscribed to Prince Charles." This latter has been 
called the plea of a partisan for the future monarch 
and for Buckingham, prompted by an anticipative 
hope of promotion when there should be a new 
accession. This is too uncharitable. The general 
question about the Protestant, nay, European im- 
policy of our alliance with Spain at this period 
must, we think, be conceded by every dispassionate 
student of the history of the Thirty Years' War. 1 
Moreover, to break it was our only chance of 
redeeming the parental honour of king James, and 
the fraternal honour of Prince Charles, which had 
been so seriously committed in their desertion of 
the elector Palatine. Surely to protest against it was 
not, necessarily, the act of a partisan. And as to 
the charge that it " palliated the perfidy with which 
the Duke of Buckingham had broken off negotiations 
with the Spanish government," 2 this must be gra- 
tuitous, for the entire pamphlet makes no one 
allusion to it whatsoever. 3 

This was Bacon's last literary act; and, without 
hazarding a thought upon the justifiableness of war, 

l Vide Schiller's History of the " Thirty Years' War." 

2 Lord Campbell, ii. p. 420. 

3 In order to be able to judge fairly as to Bacon's uprightness in his 
views, his memoranda of his conferences with Buckingham, and his 
long letter to him upon the question, should be studied. With the hope 
of expediting the alliance with France against Spain and Austria (the 
chief papal champions), he offered, even at his advanced age, to go to 
Paris, and without the honours of appearing as an accredited envoy. 
Works, vi. p. 360. 



BACOKS LIST DAYS. 283 

it is with mournful pleasure that we listen to the last 
sounds of that noble voice, uttering its warranty for 
a great national movement, which the cause of Pro- 
testant existence even, and the pledges of England 
to her monarch's children, rendered necessary. 

Soon after, king James died. His unhappy heir 
succeeded to the harvest of that whirlwind, the seeds 
of the wind of which his father had sown so broad- 
cast. The growing howlings of the storm may have 
reached Bacon's prophetic ear, but he soon became 
too ill to heed them. Though now entitled to attend 
the coronation, and to take precedence of all the 
ancient barons, his love of pomp was at length ex- 
tinct, and he declined attendance. When summoned 
to parliament, he answered, " I have done with such 
vanities;" and none of the exciting quarrels in that 
parliament, nothing of the public disturbance at its 
summary dissolution, could call him to the court. 
He had other and more holy powers to exhibit, as he 
was on the isthmus between the ambition and 
vindictive passions of this world and the judgment of 
the next. Just before the event which closed the life 
of the toil-worn statesman and philosopher, he heard 
that his successor Bishop Williams had been degraded 
from his office. He forgave and forgot all the 
humiliations that he owed to him, and actually 
entrusted to him the publication of his speeches, and 
the allocation of a literary bequest. 1 The way in 
which the bishop welcomed this confidence was as 

1 Works, v. p. 585. 



284 bacon's last days. 

cordial : " I do embrace the honour with all thank- 
fulness, and the trust imposed upon me with all 
religion and devotion." 

Meanwhile, he had the high solace of the com- 
panionship of enlightened friends, whose fidelity had 
been so severely tested. Among them was the dis- 
tinguished Ben Jonson, whose noble panegyric can 
never be forgotten : "My conceit of his person was 
never increased toward him by his place or honours, 
but I have and do reverence him for the greatness 
that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to 
me ever by his works one of the greatest men, and 
most worthy of admiration, that had been in many 
ages : in his adversity I ever prayed that God would 
give him strength, for greatness he could not want ; 
neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, 
as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but 
rather help to make it manifest." 

He had ever shown extreme solicitude to obtain 
the suffrages of the learned of foreign nations. The 
Marquis d'Effiat, who brought over the Princess 
Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles i, and who 
was himself distinguished for his attainments, and 
was familiar with Lord Bacon's works, visited him 
in his sickness. His words may be called adulatory, 
but, in their substance, they convey the impression 
which his name had produced in France. Lord 
Bacon, when he received him, was confined to his 
bed, and with the curtains drawn. " You resemble," 
said the marquis, " the angels ; we hear those beings 



bacon's last days. 285 

continually talked of; we believe them to be superior 
to mankind ; and we never have the consolation to 
see them." 

During several stages of the sickness which has- 
tened his death, he found recreation, and we would 
believe religious comfort, in the versification of 
several of the Psalms of David. The poetry may be 
no more worthy of attention, as poetry, than are the 
versiculi of Demosthenes and Cicero and others, the 
greatest masters in the rhythm of prose ; but that he 
should elaborate his version of those holy odes, 
(odes which, the more we are acquainted with the 
temptations and sins and weakness of our own 
hearts, become more precious as forms of spiritual 
faith and supplication,) goes much to substantiate 
our hope that he became unaffectedly devout. He 
inscribed them to George Herbert ; and - his mere 
friendship with so saint-like a spirit is, itself, a fact 
of interest in his religious history. 

He had slightly rallied, so far as to be able slowly 
to move abroad. His passion for natural science was 
stronger than death, and weak, tottering though he 
was, he imprudently essayed some experiment for 
preserving natural substances from putrefaction. 
With the idea that snow as well as salt might be an 
antiseptic, he gathered some which he found collected 
behind a hedge at Highgate, purchased a fowl, and 
stuffed it with the snow, with his own hands. This 
he did in spite of the remonstrances of Dr. Wedder- 
bume, the king's physician, who had accompanied 



286 bacon's last days. 

him in his drive, because of his previous prostration. 
He was instantly seized with cold and shiverings, 
and borne back to his coach most seriously indisposed. 
He became so ill that he could not proceed to. his 
chambers at Gray's Inn, and seized the hospitable 
shelter of the mansion of his friend, the Earl of 
Arundel, at Highgate. To do him honour, the 
servants laid him in the state-bed. It was damp, 
and his sufferings were aggravated. On the next 
morning, when somewhat better, still alive to the 
claims of grateful courtesy, full of hope, and fresh in 
his thoughts and power of composition, he dictated 
the following letter to Lord Arundel. It was his 
last effort. 

" I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius 
the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the 
burning of Mount Vesuvius ; for I was also desirous to try 
an experiment or two, touching the conservation and induration 
of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded exceedingly 
well; but in the journey between London and Highgate I was 
taken with such a fit of casting, as I knew not whether it were 
the stone, or some surfeit of cold, or indeed a touch of them all 
three. But when I came to your lordship's house I was not 
able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging 
here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about 
me, which I assure myself your lordship will not only pardon 
toward him, but think the better of him for it. For indeed your 
lordship's house was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands 
for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it. 

" I know how unfit it is for me to write to your lordship with 
any other hand than my own ; but, by my troth, my fingers are 
so disjointed with this fit of sickness, that I cannot steadily hold 
a pen." 



BACOX's LAST DATS. 287 

His hopes of recovery were vain ; and, after a 
week of suffering from a fever, attended with de- 
fluxion on his chest, he expired in the arms of Sir 
Julius Caesar, on the morning of Easter Sunday, the 
ninth of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 

]S"o account is left us of his latest moments. It is 
most probable, that the nature of his fatal disease 
deprived his mighty powers of self-possession. If 
it did not, we may be sure that, with his belief in 
the doctrine of a Christian immortality, his death bed 
must have presented a solemn contrast to that of 
Yoltaire, or Hirabeau, or Hume. To each of these, 
sceptics in modern times have been fond of referring, 
as proofs of the constancy, or buoyant joy, or cheerful 
calmness of infidelity in its last great crisis. But we 
would remark, that here was one who was far greater 
than they, each and all ; one of perhaps greater supe- 
riority to prejudice, more comprehensive learning; 
and if it be right to draw any probable inference 
from the thoughts and emotions of his later but still 
vigorous days, of what must have been the feeling of 
his dying hour, we may presume that — instead of 
the frenetic fury of the French infidel apostle, or 
the voluptuous tenacity of the French tribune, or 
the sportive equanimity of the English historian — 
(either of which, on the mere ground of the possibility 
of a future, was unnatural, to say the least) — there 
was, around Lord Bacon's last pillow, an awe of 
prospect which gave edge to his self-abasement for his 
sins and earnestness to his prayers for their pardon. 



288 bacon's last days. 

There was a moral fitness in the circumstances of 
his sepulture, whether we think of the privacy which 
is meet for fallen greatness, or of the simplicity 
which suits greatness at all times. As directed by 
his will, he was buried in St. Michael's church near 
St. Albans. " There," he says in his will, " was my 
mother buried." And such was the public feeling 
at that period, that the spot would now be undis- 
tinguishable and undistinguished but for the venera- 
tion in which his faithful secretary, Sir Thomas 
If eautys, held his memory. At his own expense, he 
raised a monument in white marble, where Lord 
Bacon is represented sitting in the attitude which 
was habitual to him when he was deep in thought. 
It has the following inscription : — 

PRANCISCUS BACON BARO DE VERULA S*". ALB**- VIC* S - 

SIVE NOTIORIBTJS TITULTS 

SCIENTIARUM LUMEN FACUNDIiE LEX 

SIC SEDEBAT. 

QUI POSTQUAM OMNIA NATURALIS SAPIENTLZ3 

ET CIVILIS ARCANA EVOLVISSET 

NATURE DECRETUM EXPLEVIT 

COMPOSITA SOLVANTUR 

AN ' D NI - MDCXXVI, 

JETA.T LXVI. 

TANTI "VIRI 

MEM. 

THOMAS MEAUTYS 

STTPERSTITIS CULTOR 

DEFUNCTI ADMIRATOR. 

H.P. i 

1 " Thus sat Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount of St. 
Albans ; or, to designate him by titles more renowned, the Light of the 



bacon's last days. 289 

It is unnecessary for us to record the entire of his 
"last will and testament;" the following extracts, 
however, are important for our knowledge of his 
character : — 

" First. I bequeath my soul and body into tbe hands of God, 
by the blessed oblation of my Saviour ; the one at the time of 
my dissolution, the other at the time of my resurrection . . . 
. . . For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable 

speeches, and to foreign nations, and .the next ages 

Two register books ; the one of my orations or speeches, the 
other of my epistles or letters. ... I do devise and bequeath 
them to the right honourable my very good lord bishop of 
Lincoln, and the chancellor of his majesty's duchy of Lan- 
caster." 

Then follow bequests, amounting to £240, to the 
poor of several parishes, in one of which he was 
born ; in another, where he was to be buried (adding 
as the reason why he left more to the second than to 
the first, "because the day of death is better than 
the day of birth ; ") in another, where he had heard 
sermons and prayers to his comfort in the former 
great plague. 

Then he devises to his " loving wife " what he 
deemed sufficient to make her " of competent abilities 
to maintain the estate of a viscountess, and give 
sufficient tokens of his love and liberality towards 

Sciences, and the Law of Eloquence ; who, after having unfolded all the 
mysteries of natural and political knowledge, fulfilled the law of nature, 
* that compounds must be dissolved,' in the year of our Lord, 1626, 
aged 66. 

" Thomas Meautys, his devoted servant while he was living, and his 
admirer now he is dead, has erected this in memory of s>o great a 
man." 



290 BACOX'S LAST DAYS. 

her." This, his original intention, was retracted in 
a codicil. 

He then munificently bequeaths different sums to 
his servants ; to those who had been, as well as those 
who remained, in his household ; various tokens of 
affection to his friends ; and the produce of the sale 
of his chambers at Gray's Inn, to twenty-five poor 
scholars, fifteen in Cambridge, and ten in Oxford. 

" And because I conceive there will be, 

upon the moneys raised by sale of my lands, leases, 
goods and chattels, a good round surplusage, over and 
above that which may serve to satisfy my debts and 
legacies." .... "With this preamble, he bequeaths 
several sums for the foundation of lectureships "in 
either the universities," and provides as to the 
lectures, "that it be without difference, whether 
they be strangers or English." 

Having named his executors, he thus concludes : — 
" And I do most earnestly entreat both my execu- 
tors and supervisors that, although I know well 
it is a matter of trouble and travail unto them, 
yet considering what I have been, that they would 
vouchsafe to do this last office to my memory and 
good name, and to the discharge of mine honour 
and conscience ; that all men may be duly paid their 
own, that my good mind, by their good care, may 
effect that good work." 

To this there was added a painful codicil which 
was made in his sickness : — " "Whatsoever I have 
given, granted, confirmed, or appointed to my wife, 



BAC0X S LAST DATS. 291 

in the former part of this my will, I do now, for 
just and great causes, utterly revoke and make void, 
and leave her to her right only." 1 

We have selected from this document those par- 
ticulars only which appear to throw light upon his 
faith ; upon his judgment about his own position in 
the world; and on his relationships in life. We 
would briefly advert to them. 

His solemn committal of himself to God, is ex- 
pressed in words which avow his trust in the sacri- 
ficial atonement of the Son of God. 

His appeal from the tomb to the charitable 
speeches of his immediate survivors, to foreign 
nations, and to after ages, must be taken as his 
last and dying conviction that, notwithstanding all 
his delinquencies (and he had confessed and bewailed 
them), he had nevertheless been wronged ; and that 
he stood in need of a tribunal so dispassionate, as 
could only be expected among those who were 
remote, either by place or time, from the struggles 
in which he had been engaged. It, moreover, must 
be accepted as an act of noble consciousness, that 
he was to be a man of all future time. 

His will, compared with the codicil respecting 
his wife, is mysterious. We have not the slightest 
authority for impeaching her goo. name. But the 
fact that he expressly states, that he makes the 
codicil "in his illness," renders it probable that, 
until some short time previous, she had retained his 

1 Works, vi p. 411. 



292 bacon's last days. 

affection, but that then, for some unexplained reasons, 
she had left him to suffer in his solitude. What- 
ever may have been the cause, such a desertion, 
if it occurred, must have been another dreg in a cup 
whose bitterness already had overflown. 

His many and large bequests, accompanied with 
his assurance that his estate would realize them, 
have awakened a surprise which has ended in 
suspicion. How, it has been asked, could he have 
believed it, and meanwhile have uttered lamenta- 
tions about his penury, and preferred prayers for 
his relief, which none but a " beadsman" could have 
honestly employed? We admit this difficulty to 
be great, even insuperable, unless we pay especial 
attention to a sentence in his last testament which 
all his calumniators have overlooked. " I do further 
give and devise . ... my pension of tweke 
hundred pounds per annum from the king, for certain 
years yet to come" From this and several letters 
to the Duke of Buckingham, 1 it is evident that the 
king had bound himself to this annuity. It was 
in considerable arrears. And Lord Bacon, with the 
utmost uprightness, might have calculated that it 
would hereafter enable him to fulfil his munificent 
intentions. 

It is true that the executors whom Lord Bacon 
had nominated, declined to act " for certain reasons." 
Those reasons may, or may not, have been simply the 
" toil and travail" of which the will had forewarned 

1 Works, v. p. 531. 



BACONS LAST DAYS. 293 

them. It is also to be admitted, for we have Lord 
Campbell's high authority/ after his own careful 
examination, " that Bacon died insolvent." But 
when it is taken into account that the large claims of 
some of his creditors were sab judice ; that Lord 
Bacon firmly, and, perhaps, with good reason, pro- 
tested against the admission of those claims as against 
all equity and law ; and that these being subducted, 
his estate did produce results which, if the king's 
pension had been honourably paid, would have been 
adequate ; we must in fairness free the memory of 
his lordship from a stain of meanness and untruth 
which would otherwise be indelible. It will be 
understood, that we aim only to reconcile the 
apparent discrepancy between the assumptions of 
wealth which are in his will, and his complaints cf 
poverty which he made at his latest days. His 
improvidence must, alas ! come again before us in 
our survey of his character. 

It remains for us to close with some few remarks 
of a more general nature. 

In the words of Evelyn : u He was of a middling 
stature ; his forehead, spacious and open, early im- 
pressed with the marks of age ; his eye lively and 
penetrating ; his whole appearance venerably pleas- 
ing, so that the beholder was insensibly drawn to 
love, before he knew how much reason there was to 
admire him. In this respect, we may apply to my 
Lord Bacon what Tacitus finely observes of his 

1 Lord Campbell, ii. p. 433. 



294 bacon's last days. 

father-in-law, Agricola: a good man you would 
readily have judged him to be, and been pleased to 
find him a great man." * 

In social life his morals were unimpeachable, 
although the very opposite to an ascetic ; his habits 
were genial, without being self-indulgent; and in 
his intercourse with his companions, vast though was 
his superiority in knowledge, and in all the requisites 
for asserting it in conversation, he never claimed 
preeminence. He ever studied how to elicit and set 
off to advantage the peculiar faculties of those who 
were around him. The more obscure the company, 
the more generous his behaviour. He neither des- 
pised, nor affected to patronise, the remarks of any 
one. When he combined them with his own, it was 
in order to illustrate, not eclipse them. His tempe- 
rament was grave ; but this, surrounded as it was by 
a calm pleasantry, which indulged itself in apoph- 
thegms, as amusing as they were sententious, must 
have been far more winning than one which often 
betrays its flippancy amidst the coruscations of its 
wit. By his servants he was tenderly beloved ; he 
indulged them to excess, and that contributed to his 
ruin. 

Painful, deeply painful as it is, we must readvert 
to those weaknesses of his private character which 
we believe led to his public crimes. Had he not 
from the first involved himself in cruel and increasing 
debt, we cannot dream that he would have appeared 

1 Evelyn's History of Medals, p» 340. 



bacon's last days. 295 

so often and so degradingly, in forma pauperis, as a 
suitor for employment ; that to obtain and aggrandize 
that employment, he would have enacted an Iscariot 
to his friend, and then blackened his memory; that 
he would have become the dishonourable tool of a 
minion whom he must have cordially despised, and 
the panderer to the sickening conceits of a monarch, 
from whose despotism he must have often shrunk 
with horror. Eut, alas ! for him the path back to 
honour was crossed by a bailiff, and the sight of him 
not only prevented a virtuous retreat, but sent 
himself forward morally bewildered. The possibility 
of such a case will soon be confirmed by a slight 
observation of men and things ; and while it holds 
out the most solemn warning as to itself in particular, 
it should suggest the general law of which it is an 
instance, namely, that all our moral principles are so 
closely interwoven, that what deteriorates one, even 
the smallest, must deteriorate the rest. The electric 
spark may touch only a filament, but the current 
will be all pervading. 

It were easy to employ generalities of phrase, and 
to call Lord Bacon one of the greatest orators, and 
statesmen, and jurists, and philosophers, and moralists 
of the world. Eut this must not content us. He 
was preeminently so original, and his originality had 
such an oneness, that if we can but seize and represent 
to ourselves this peculiarity, we shall understand him. 
It appears to us that whether he addressed an 
audience, or meditated a state-document, or framed 



296 bacon's last days. 

a law opinion, or pursued science, or observed men 
and manners, there was, as his invariable and 
necessary characteristic, a positive inability to look 
at facts merely as individuals. He had no microscopic 
eye, with only one point illumined in the midst of 
interminable darkness. If he essayed to convince 
the judgment, his argument had its numerous colla- 
terals; if to swell a -passion, he provided tributary 
streams. His legislation was for peoples, not for a 
country, even though that country was his own. To 
him the minute specifications of the learned Coke 
were imperceptible, he could contemplate only the 
general laws of society ; just as the facts in philo- 
sophy which were empirical were, in his estimate, 
nothing, for he appreciated principles solely. So 
too when he described the heart, it was not that of 
one man, or of one variety of man, but of man : 
the pulsations which he watched were the pulsations 
of humanity. This is not inconsistent with his high 
title — "The Philosopher of Facts." He saw their 
relations, but he saw those relations in those facts 
themselves. 

We have had to refer so often to his views of 
Christianity, that we will only add, that they partook 
of the same largeness of conception, combined with 
the same relation of particulars. The charge of 
infidelity against him by French writers, is precisely 
analogous to that which Voltaire and others have 
adduced against Pascal; and on the same ground. 
The one wrote his "Paradoxes," the other his 



EACOX ? S LAST DATS. 297 

"Thoughts;" both giving us, not their own con- 
clusions, but the mental struggles amid which those 
conclusions were attained. 

But should it be retorted on us — Of what value 
were all Lord Bacon's convictions, seeing that, in 
spite of them, he erred so immorally r we must 
sorrowfully answer, that while we know from what 
they did not keep him, we know not from what they 
did ; that he was one of the greatest benefactors of 
his species, in the illustration and advocacy of truth, 
and in active labours for their civil good ; and we 
know not how much of this was the real result of 
those convictions ; and, finally, that the moment 
those convictions came into healthier action, they 
saved him from despair. They made the eventide of 
his life more hopeful, and its light more beneficent 
than its meridian. 

In one of his last letters to king James, which we 
have quoted, he expresses his trust in God that he 
has been made a "new creature." Of the necessity 
of this change of heart by the Spirit of God ; of the 
comparative powerlessness of Christian motives and 
restraints before that change has taken place, holy 
Scripture is decisive in its statements. And the case 
before us is one which, on Lord Bacon's own belief, 
we may regard as an illustration. If any of our 
readers, therefore, shall close this lament over the 
sins of a name so high, and this humble tribute to a 
man so great, with a firmer assurance of this truth, 
we shall be humbly and fervently thankful. His 



298 bacon's last days. 

learning, his science, his experience, however mighty 
their considerations for the support of virtue, failed 
him; so too his Christian views, whilst merely a 
theory, failed him. He confessed this. ! may we 
not trust, diffidently if needs be, that he clung to 
his hope of a blessed immortality from the humble 
belief that he was brought under the condition 
described in the Divine declaration : " Except a man 
be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
heaven?" 

We cannot close this memoir without adding a few 
more remarks which, however general they may be, 
have direct reference to that individual case that 
has been before us. Our readers will, we trust, 
have perceived how anxiously we have striven to 
vindicate Lord Bacon's character, as far as the sacred 
obligations of truth and religion would allow us; 
and how earnestly we have watched for even the 
slightest indications of true repentance before God, 
after his fall and shame. They will not therefore 
consider us uncharitable or self-righteous when, 
with the deepest reverence for his unrivalled genius, 
and a glad appreciation of his many high qualities, 
we feel constrained to hold him up as a warning, 
both to men who are highly intellectual themselves, 
and to a far larger class, namely, those who admire 
intellect in others. It would seem as if the God 
of holiness had, in his inscrutable providence, allowed 
such a mind, guarded as it was by every intellectual 
warden, to show its own moral frailty, in order that 



bacon's LAST DATS. 299 

we might the more impressively be taught the lesson: 
" Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither 
let the mighty man glory in his might ; let not the 
rich man glory in his riches : but let him that 
glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and 
knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise 
loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the 
earth ; for in these things I delight, saith the 
Lord." 1 "Bemember Lot's wife" was the injunction of 
our blessed Lord, when he warned his disciples against 
a tenacity to the world. May we not humbly but 
urgently say, "Bemember Lord Bacon," whenever 
you think of the power and glory of human science 
and human wisdom ; whenever any effort, or any 
combination of the mental faculties, awakes your 
admiration and applause. "We say not this from any 
sympathy with those who maliciously decry " genius" 
and " talent " and " cleverness." Let such qualities 
be found in union with " repentance towards God, 
and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ;" let them, 
instead of having the mastery, be the greatest hand- 
maids to love to God and to his Son, and this their 
position, instead of detracting from their sublimity or 
beauty, will only the more ennoble them. It will 
give the widest and loftiest range for development 
and action. It will supply them with purposes and 
motives which, in grandeur, shall be most akin unto 
themselves. And meanwhile, by its constant sugges- 
tions of self- distrust, and of the need of the aid and 

Jeremiah is, 23, 21. 



300 bacon's last days. 

protection of the Holy Spirit, will preserve them 
from disgraceful failures and humiliations. 

We cannot but believe that all that was low in 
sycophancy, degrading and perilous in debt, treache- 
rous in friendship, subservient in guilty policy, and 
dishonest in the administration of justice, which we 
have had to record in the life of Lord Bacon, would 
never have blotted his noble escutcheon, if he had 
walked humbly with his God, kept in so doing by an 
habitual consciousness of sinfulness ; by a love and 
confidence in God as a Father "in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself; " by a jealousy for the honour 
of his Saviour ; and an hourly reference of all his 
wants and difficulties to the guidance and support of 
the Holy Ghost. 

Oh! had it been so, there would have been no 
danger of "hero- worship,' ' in dwelling upon his 
fair and glorious fame ; for, with all his knowledge 
and eloquence and science he would have said, " By 
the grace of God, I am what I am." 



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